Rent-a-plus-one
by sbrockz
Summary: Regina is a Divorced Elite and the organizer for Spring ball in Storybrooke. Her Ex-husband Leopold was re-married and is going to be a father. Now Regina needs a plus one for the Event so she doesn't have to look alone in the Event. Her Gay Best Friend suggests for Renting a Plus One just for the Event. So, Will that be a start for new chapter or a disaster. SwanQueen. AU.
1. Regina Mills

**AN: I DON'T OWN THE CHARACTERS OR THE SHOW.**

**I want to thank _hunnyfresh _being my beta reader. I really appreciate what she does even when her busy schedule. "You are Super Awesome."**

**Chapter 1:**

* * *

Glimpsing herself in the mirror at the Coffee Shop, Regina Mills feels happier than she has in the year since . . . No. No need to go there now and ruin her day. You look good, girl. Well, girl may be stretching things (she's nudging thirty, after all) but she doesn't look it. She's been away for a month at a very exclusive spa being pampered and massaged and detoxed, spending her days sipping health drinks, trying not to gape at the freakishly tall supermodels tripping around, all skittish and gawky off the runway.

Yes, looking good, ready for the night that for the last half-a-decade has been the highlight of her year: the Spring Ball, a charity event sponsored by Regina Mills and Leopold White. Once upon a time Mr. and Mrs. White but no longer.

Seeing a frown line creasing her forehead, Regina banishes that thought. Let go, let go, let go . . . Regina hums the little mantra to herself, taking a deep breath. She will enjoy the Ball she has worked tirelessly to organize.

True, it'll be her first year going solo with no Leopold to lean on, but she'll do it. Yes, she will.

Regina smiles at herself, her good humor restored, pleased—again—at how rejuvenated she looks. Positively glowing. Then a face appears in the mirror beside hers. A young face. A very young, beautiful face framed by a froth of red hair, and a third face fills the looking glass, an all-too familiar one and Regina stares at the tanned features of the man she woke up beside for a half-a-decade.

"Gina," her ex-husband says, "great to see you."

Regina turns from the mirror and looks up into the eyes of her ex-husband.

"You remember Jenna," he says, pointing toward Regina's replacement, the once-upon-a-time personal assistant (make that very _personal_) who is the new Mrs. White.

"How could I forget?" Regina says, knowing she has to take charge here.

"What a pleasure to see you, Regina," Jenna says with an unconvincing smile.

"Yes, a wonderful surprise," Regina says. "Leo, I thought you were off counting your money in the Caymans or wherever?"

Leopold shrugs. "Well, even though I don't live up here any more, Storybrooke is still my home town and I wanted to share the good news with all the old gang."

"Good news?" Regina asks.

"And we wanted you to be the first to know," the child bride says, touching Regina on the shoulder, and when Regina looks down to assess the size of the rock on the ring finger she sees something that robs her of her breath: she's sees a bump. Not just any bump, a four-months-gone bump.

She's staring at the girl's midriff, and Leopold—Leo, darling, honey, lover man—lays a proud hand on the bump, lays a hand on the one thing that Regina (accomplished, witty, smart, stylish Regina) could never give him.

"I was going to come by the house and tell you . . ." Leopold's leading man smile not quite hiding his discomfort.

"Oh, well, what do they say about a picture being worth a thousand words?" Regina says, feeling very much as if she has just stepped in front of a speeding bus.

Regina, eyes swimming with tears, sees that gossip-seeking missile Maleficent advancing, false eyelashes beating like bat's wings, mouth open on her capped teeth, slavering with hungry anticipation.

_Don't cry, Regina, don't cry, girl._

But the tears are coming, and she feels a sob building in her throat when clumsy Archie Hopper—like a gift from above—suddenly appears in front of her, executing a spin and stumble that would have done a silent movie comedian proud and ends up breaking his fall by enfolding her breasts in his mitts.

Regina's sob becomes a laugh as poor Archie jumps back like he's been tasered and says, "Oh, God, I'm so sorry . . ."

And Regina smiles at him and says in her best after dinner speaker voice, "Don't be Archie, they have gone a little unappreciated lately." Flicking her eyes over Leopold, who has the good grace to smirk.

"And I'm sure you'll vouch that they're real?" Regina says this with perfect timing as she snaps her gaze to the bitch Maleficent's chest, her top cut low to display her esthetic surgeon's finest work.

And on that note—an unexpectedly high note thanks to poor Archie Hopper—she turns and strides between the books to where her dearest friend Jefferson has swanned into the coffee shop.

"Darling," Jeff says, kissing the air in the vicinity of her left cheek. "You look absolutely edible. You have to give me the lowdown on that spa."

Jeff, born Jefferson Hatter in the Bronx, affects the voice and manner of a camp Englishman from the thirties. He draws out Regina's chair and seats her, whispering in her ear. "Is that the little cradle-snatchee I see over there?"

"Yes it is. Notice anything about her?" He folds himself into a chair opposite Regina.

"Mmmm, all those extensions must have left a Mexican village of Kojaks."

"Look at her middle, Jeff."

He stares at Leopold and Jenna as they exit the store and holds a palm to his mouth. "No!"

"Yes."

He takes her hand. "I'm sorry, Gina."

"Hey, it is what it is."

"The bastard could have told you."

"I know. Leopold's always been a coward."

"I would use a shorter word." He squeezes her fingers. "Anyway, darling, just think of those acres and acres of stretch marks."

A waitress appears with menus but Jeff waves them away. "Just a teeny little espresso for me."

"Perrier and a slice of lemon, please," Regina says.

She closes her eyes and sighs. "Tomorrow night is going to be a nightmare."

"Relax, darling, I'll be your plus one."

"That's just the problem, Jeff. Leopold will be escorting his young, beautiful and radiantly pregnant new bride to the Spring Ball and I'll be on the arm of Storybrooke's gayest bachelor. No offense, sweetheart."

"None taken."

Regina's Perrier has appeared and she takes a sip. "Where are all the damned single men or single woman, Jeff?"

"In this town? The possessive wives or jealous husbands have them shot as they exit the 101."

Regina laughs into her glass of water.

"Didn't you meet anybody when you were away?" Jeff asks.

"Yes, supermodels I could have smuggled out in my purse."

"Anybody interesting?"

"At a spa, Jeff? Please."

"I take your point."

"God, being a single woman in a town like this is so damned inconvenient. You know the other day I even had to call Rent-A-Husband?"

"Darling, you're not about to reveal something sordid are you?" he says, leaning in to catch every word.

"Rent-A-Husband is a handyman, Jeff. A chubby guy in his forties, with a combover and bad breath."

"Sounds delightful."

"He was very sweet and he sorted out my backed up drain."

Jeff stirs his coffee, looking out at the street, lost in thought. Regina says. "Am I boring you?"

"No, Gina, you're not. I think I have a teeny weensy little idea."

"Mmmm?"

"What you need is to arrive at the Ball tomorrow night on the arm of a Charismatic and Successful Person."

"Stop talking yourself up, Jeff."

"Not me, silly."

"You're not telling me anything I don't know, Jeff."

"And I think there's a way to make it happen."

"This is my life, Jeff, not one of your damned soaps." Jefferson is a successful creator of television shows, managing them by remote from Storybrooke, five hours down the coast from crazy NYC.

"That Rent-A-Husband thing has got me thinking," he says.

"I'm not going to the Spring Ball with the plumber."

"Regina, there's someone I know down in LA who would be perfect."

"Who is he?"

"First of all it is a SHE, she's the tall, charismatic, terribly beautiful scion of one of those ancient East Coast families."

"Did you say SHE?"

"Oh come on, girl. I know you swing both the ways. Who are you fooling; the entire town knows it. It was the most shocking news for this town remember."

"Oookay but why would SHE want to attend a dance in this hick town with a divorcée on her arm?"

"A beautiful divorcée."

"Cut the nonsense, Jeff."

"Would you be interested in renting a plus one, Gina?" She stares at him. "She's a failed actor. She's broke. She'd do it for the money."

"Ow, Jeff, I think that's my self esteem you just stood in."

"Regina, it's for one night. It's a bit of play-acting and it'll give you a real boost. And think of how much easier it'll be to stomach those two," Jeff says, nodding at the window.

Regina's eyes are drawn to Leopold and his new wife crossing the road from the wine store, arm in arm, laughing as they approach the Mercedes.

"What the hell," Regina says, "I'm in."

* * *

**AN: Something new I am trying. If you guys want me to proceed. I will continue. I didn't forget my other story 'The Puppy and The Mayor', I will upload a new chapter by this weekend.**


	2. Emma Swan

**First of all Thank you to everyone who has reviewed it. I didn't expect this response from you people. Okay little overwhelmed. But I promise I will continue this story and will even try to finish it. **

**Secondly Thank you so much _hunnyfresh _for being my Beta Reader. You are the Best.**

**I don't own the characters or the show.**

**Chapter 2:**

* * *

"Not the face," Emma Swan says, curling into a ball, trying to cover her head. "Please, not the face."

The first kick had been to her stomach, making her fall, leaving her lying amongst the garbage in the alley. The second kick takes her in the side, beneath the ribs, and as air leaks from her, Emma waits for the third kick which doesn't come. She peers through her fingers at the shaven-headed giant in the baggy pants, tattoos coiling down his arms. Something is said in Spanish, and Emma looks across at dapper Raymond Gomez, dressed in a polo shirt, chinos and slip-on moccasins. The new face of NYC bookmakers. Raymond waves a hand at the giant who takes a step back, and then he tugs at her jacket and squats down, careful not to dirty himself.

"Emma," he says, in a voice light years from the barrio. "Raymond."

"The money. You have been delinquent."

Emma drops her hands and smiles, and if it weren't for the insalubrious surroundings of the downtown NYC alleyway, she could be in a smoking room in an Upper East Side club, with her fine bones and her patrician accent.

"A cash flow issue. I'll have it resolved by the end of the weekend." Emma is trying to get up, but the bookmaker places a hand on her shoulder.

"Stay down, Emma. So you won't have to fall again."

"You're not done?"

"No, I think my message needs to be underscored."

"Raymond, be a sport. We've known each other a very long while."

The bookmaker pats her shoulder. "Exactly, Emma, which is why I'll tell Edmundo to keep his size twelves out of your pretty face." He stands. "You have until Monday."

There's a rattle of Spanish and Emma covers up again as the giant steps in and delivers a series of kicks that leave her stunned, lying alone and miserable in this stinking alley, bemoaning fate and life.

No, not quite alone: she sees a rat peering at her from behind a trashcan. It seems to shake its head, as if recognizing a kindred spirit, before it darts away, its pink tail snaking after it. The day gets no better when Emma Swan arrives back at her walk-up, after a long and painful trek from downtown—no money for a subway, let alone a cab—and finds her few pitiful belongings dumped out in the corridor, the apartment padlocked. Emma sits down on the stairs and leans her throbbing head against the railing. She finds her hand under her t-shirt, toying with the ring she wears on a chain around her neck. Her mother's ring. The mother who died giving birth to her. Emma knew her only from photographs and the glimpses of her beauty in her own face, but her imagined love sustains Emma through years of arid relationships with aloof stepmothers.

The ring, a cluster of diamonds and sapphires, is worth a fortune and Emma, disgusted at herself for even allowing this thought into her mind, can't stop the awful realization that all that stands between her and the ER are these stones.

Her cell phone buzzes. Amazed it wasn't damaged in the fracas she draws it from her pocket and thinks that things may be looking up when he sees caller ID.

"Jeff," she says, not quite masking a groan.

"Emma, why do you sound as if you're in agony?"

"Just finished a grueling kick-boxing session, old man. What's up?" "How would you like a job?"

"Well, I'd have to check with my agent."

"Stop being silly, darling, this is me."

"Okay, what are you offering? A walk-on part in Startup?"

"No, my friend, the leading woman in Storybrooke."

"I haven't seen that show."

"It's not a show, it's a town. Where I live."

"I'm not with you, old son."

"I want to employ you to escort a very dear and very lovely friend of mine to a ball."

"I'm not a damned prostitute, Jeff."

"No, what you are is broke and desperate. It'll be for one night and it'll pay well."

"How well?"

Jeff names a figure that would make a serious dent in Emma's gambling debt.

"Okay, I'm warming to the idea."

"How lovely. Do you have something wear for a fund raising event?"

"It's at the cleaners."

"You're lying to me."

"Jeff, I was burglarized . . ."

"Spare me. Do you know Lightbodys on Fifth Avenue?"

"Yes."

"I have an account there. Go over and get yourself wardrobed. A formal dress and a casual outfit to travel in. Stylishly preppy, you know the score. Then I want you at Union Station by six to get the train to Storybrooke."

"Jeff, I'm a little financially embarrassed. I think train fare is beyond my means."

"Darling, darling, darling, what has happened to the power elite?

Okay, James at Lightbodys will make some cash available to you. Enough to get you to Storybrooke. I'll meet you at the station at eight."

"I'll be there."

"Don't let me down."

"I won't." As Emma levers herself to her feet and walks away from the small pile of belongings she no longer wants, she whistles the song from her alma mater to stop herself weeping at the pain in her bruised abdomen. She no longer feels the bruises to her ego.

**Here in Storybrooke:**

_Madness. _

_This. Is. Madness. _

Regina Mills, prowling the sprawling mausoleum of a house—always more to Leopold's taste than hers—feels so agitated that she cracks a bottle of wine for the first time in months and has slugged half a glass before she even realizes it.

_Slow down, Regina. _

_Breathe. _

She settles on a couch in the living room, staring blankly at The Bachelor on TV and realizes that she has taken leave of hers senses. That the sight of Leopold and his fertile little floozy left her unhinged enough to be hypnotized by Jefferson Hatter and his screenwriter fantasies. She has an image of Jeff as a snake charmer, dressed in pantaloons and a turban, blowing on a flute in some Kasbah or souk—is there a difference?

Leopold would know.

God, how she misses him.

They were the golden couple at high school and married while Leopold was still at college getting his business diploma. They'd battled through a few tough years, and then Leopold had started making serious money in property development, and the cash rolled in and with it came the big house and the cars and the trips to Europe.

Suddenly Regina had a walk-in dressing room jammed with Prada and Manolo Blahnik, but the room that she'd decorated as a nursery stayed as empty as Regina's womb.

Leopold said it was fine, that he loved her, and when in vitro didn't take, they spoke of adoption.

But Leopold started spending more time in the apartment down in NYC, needing to be close to his office.

Spent more time traveling, too, on business. Taking along his assistant, the froth-haired Jenna.

Regina has no other family to call.

Her mother died five years ago of an aneurism, dropped dead at the returns counter at Wal-Mart, arguing with a customer representative. She'd been left enraged when her husband had died when Regina was ten, and had spent the rest of her life directing that rage at the world in random fits of temper.

But what Regina does know is whom she must call: Jeff. She must stop wallowing in self-pity and call him and put an end to this madness.

No matter how desperate she is, there is no way she is going to pay a woman to escort her to the Ball. Regina picks up her cell phone from the side table and hits speed-dial. The phone trills for a few seconds before Jeff answers.

"Darling."

"Jeff, we need to call this off."

"Come on Gina, don't tell me you're getting cold feet?"

"If they got any colder they'd be frostbitten."

"Hah, hah."

"I'm not doing this, Jeff. It's crazy. I should never have let you bully me into this."

"Bully? Darling, I object!"

"Object away, but just stop this madness. Get hold of your Emma Lawn—"

"Swan, darling."

"Whatever. Just get hold of her and tell her it's off."

"Too late honeybuns."

"What do you mean?"

"She's en route, clickety clacking your way on Amtrak as we speak."

"Well, derail her."

"I hope you don't mean that literally? There are innocent lives at stake."

"Stop trying to be witty, Jeff, and hear me when I say this isn't going to happen."

There's a moments' pause before Jeff says, "Regina, I understand your apprehension."

"Thank you."

"But may I make a teeny-weeny suggestion?"

"No."

"Why don't I pick her up at the train station and bring her by? If you don't like her we'll send her packing. Think of it as an audition."

"I won't like her. This is worse than a blind date. I feel like you're pimping for me."

"Ouch!"

"Admit it, Jeff, this is distasteful."

"Oh, I don't know, it all feels quite sophisticated to me. Almost French."

"Call the woman."

"Gina, I've gone to a lot of trouble on your account."

"I'm sorry, Jeff, I know you have."

"Please, just take a look at her."

"No."

"I may have called you many things, Regina, but never rude, and turning this poor woman away sight unseen, is very, very rude." Oh the bitch knows just where to hit. Regina sighs and says, "Okay, bring her here for a drink, then I'll very sweetly explain that I wasn't in my right mind, that it has nothing to do with her and pay her some kind of cancellation fee and send her away." "Okay, deal."

"Good." Regina ends the call, feeling more in control.

Then she sees herself in the mirror and realizes she looks like hell. She can't receive guests looking like this. Even though the woman is never-to-be-hired-help, standards must be maintained.

Emma Swan (or Emma James Swan to be precise) feels remarkably restored as she sips a more than decent single-malt in the dining car of the train, staring out into the night. Her ribs ache, of course, and there's a nasty twinge in the area of her liver where the Mexican thug sank his boot, but she is dressed in a crisp new button-up shirt, slacks, high heels and a suit jacket. A suit bag containing a very elegant dress.

After her trip to the outfitters, she'd made use of her gym membership (bought during an all-too-brief flush period months ago) and showered and shaved and dressed in her new clothes.

By the time she got down to Union Station she felt almost her old self again.

Lifting her glass to signal for another drink, Emma feels a sharp pain in her shoulder, and she's back in that filthy alley, being tenderized like the filling of a beef fajita.

Emma's good mood slips a little as she considers her predicament, understands just how messy and unpleasant her life has become, after such a promising start.

She was born into a very old Boston family, silver spoon firmly in place when she exited the birth canal. The only child, she was sent to Andover and Harvard just like her father and grandfather before her.

Her father, David James Swan II, seemed interested only in blowing the wealth accumulated by his father, DJS I, an austere Yankee industrialist who had served two terms in the Senate.

By the time she was ten Emma had skied at Gstaad, holidayed in Monaco with the Grimalidis and had ridden on an elephant with an Indian princeling. When she reached her early twenties—even though she'd scraped together a useless degree from Harvard—she'd been encouraged to play just as her father played. Her was a world of women, horses, shopping, partying, racing cars and yachts.

Then in Emma's 24th year (on a day in late 2008) her father called her to his office.

Emma—tanned as teak from a month in Morocco—assumed that the older man was going to tell her that it was time for her to curb her life of leisure, to at least feign some interest in the family business.

David, standing by the window, held up a decanter of fine brandy. "Drink?"

"Of course."

Her father—whose face, disconcertingly, was like an age-ravaged version of her own—poured two glasses, and when he leaned over to pass a tumbler to her daughter his hand shook and Emma could smell that this wasn't the older man's first drink.

"Good luck," Emma said.

"We're going to need it." They sat and her father threw back most of the brandy in one gulp.

"You know my father actually increased his fortune during the Great Depression?"

Emma nodded, bored. She'd heard this story too many times. "Yes, he was quite the captain of industry, wasn't he?"

"That he was. His hands never left the tiller, if I may flog a dead metaphor."

Emma laughed politely, her mind on the Austrian princess she had been dallying with, the filthiest woman it had ever been her pleasure to bed.

"Thing is, Emma, I've never been much of a hands-on man myself."

"God forbid. Too tedious."

"Yes, that's what I thought. So I let the so-called financial gurus handle our money. And, it has to be said, we prospered." "Certainly seems that way."

Her father looked at her with an expression she had never seen on the man's face before. Was this fear?

"What's up?"

"You've heard about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?"

"The old Vaudeville act?" The older man bared his teeth in a snarl. "You know they went belly up?"

"I heard something to that effect."

"And that Wall Street is in a panic, and that the whole damned financial bubble has burst?"

Emma shrugged. "Not really my thing."

"No, mine neither." Her father slumped in his chair. "Emma there's no easy way to say this: our fortune is gone."

"You're not serious?"

"Oh, but I am. Those gurus consulted some poorly informed oracles, I'm afraid."

"It's all gone?"

"Everything."

"What about our properties?"

"Gone. A house of cards."

"The art collections?"

"Seized. Under lock and key."

"So no more trust fund?"

"No."

"You're saying that I'll have to work?"

"Yes, my baby girl. I'm sorry."

"Good God."

"Yes."

"What will you do?"

Her father, suddenly an old man, shrugged. "I don't know."

The next day her father took his boat out onto the south and never returned, so Emma traveled to NYC, with the half-baked notion of trading on her good looks in the movie business. There was some initial interest due to the cachet her name carried, and she landed herself an agent.

A part in an independent movie came her way, playing herself, really. But she found that once the camera rolled being herself wasn't at all easy.

Her usually flippant delivery became leaden and—most embarrassingly—she froze, was literally incapable of remembering a single line of the script, take after mortifying take.

So her career was stillborn.

So Emma Swan started to gamble. She'd always been a gambler—it was in her blood—but now she played with desperation.

Desperation and very little skill.

She lost. She lost badly. Lost so badly that she ended up having the pâté kicked out of her in that downtown alley. And now she is on a train rattling toward one of those horrible coastal feeder-towns, all new money and Spanish kitsch, she is sure.

She sighs and polishes off her drink as her stop is called.

When Emma steps out onto the platform she sees Jefferson Hatter waiting for her, waving a languid hand.

"How are you, darling?" asks.

"Peachy."

"Good trip?"

"It was fine."

They walk, Jeff eyeing her. "Why are you limping?"

"A jujutsu accident."

"Ah."

They arrive at a brand new Jaguar saloon.

"Your chariot, Ma'am," Jeff says.

"Where does this come from?"

"A prop, darling. A rental. To fit with your image of the wealthy young scion." Emma nods. Jeff holds out the keys. "You can drive, I presume?"

"I chased Michael Schumacher around Nürburgring when I was seventeen."

"Well, I hope he let you catch him."

Emma dumps her things in the trunk and Jeff directs her out of the train station that is—as she suspected—disguised as a hacienda.

"How can you live up here, Jeff?" she asks as they drive down the depressing little main drag.

"It's quiet and it's pretty."

"It's a backwater."

"I think you know all about NYC and its temptations. Life up here is a simpler proposition. I can get my work done."

"Sounds dire."

"Not at all."

Jeff turns to look at Emma. "Now, I need to warn you that Regina Mills is a little nervous."

Emma bursts out laughing. "That's her name? Regina Mills?"

"Yes, why?"

"God, Jeff, Mean Girls meets Manning O'Brine! I can only imagine what she looks like."

"Regina is my very best friend and she's a beautiful and charming woman."

"I'll bet."

"Stop the car."

"Why?"

"Stop the car!" Suddenly Jeff isn't camp anymore and when he grips Emma's forearm it hurts. As Emma pulls over to the curb Jeff reaches up and clicks on the dome light.

"Listen you two-bit little bitch," the voice is pure Bronx. "You're a nothing. A nobody. You're here on my dime. You'll cut the smarmy attitude and do what you're being paid to do: you'll be charming and gallant and make my friend look and feel good. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"And if you put one toe out of line I will personally beat the living crap out of you."

"I know jujitsu."

"You don't know a damned thing," Jeff says, jabbing his fingers under Emma's ribs, right where she was kicked. Emma groans. "Now drive."

Emma clicks the car into gear and she drives, wondering why, oh why, life keeps humiliating her this way.

* * *

**Next Chapter the ladies meet. The chemistry is off charts. Will Regina agree to Jeff and keeps Emma as Plus-One or she says no?**

**I will upload the new chapter in three-four days.**

**Did anyone guess the "Mean girls meets Manning O'Brine" reference?**

**Reviews Please?  
**


	3. Riding Crop

**Thank you so much _hunnyfresh _for being my Beta Reader.**

**I don't own the characters or the Show!**

* * *

**Chapter 3:**

_She's not bad looking_, Regina has to concede.

_Come on, Regina, she's smokin' hot_.

_Too much TV, Regina_, she tells herself.

_It's starting to erode your vocabulary like candy rots teeth_.

She stands up from the couch and walks across to the sideboard, holding up the bottle of wine. "Can I top you up?"

Emma Swan rises and holds out her glass. "Please."

Regina smiles at Emma and as she pours the wine she feels Jeff's eyes on her. When she looks his way he winks. He's reading her like an open book. Regina dims the wattage of her smile and pulls herself together. Yes, the woman in good looking. Yes, she is well-spoken and polite, but she is a failed actress, and this is a sham, and she has to put an end to it, right now.

Jeff says, "Tell Regina about when you trained to be a mahout, Emma."

Regina looks daggers at Jeff, who pretends not to see her, sipping at his wine. He knows her too well, knows her embarrassing fascination with colonial India. Once, when she was a little tipsy she made the mistake of telling Jeff that.

Emma Swan is saying, "Oh, when I was a little girl I had a friend, Bolly Singh."

"That would be Prince Balachandra Singh of Jaipur?" Jeff says.

"Yes, Bolly. They lived in a rundown old palace that dated back to the Moguls. They've always kept elephants and when I spent a few months with them one summer during the monsoon their old mahout showed me a few tricks. I got quite close to a young bull elephant named Kipling. It was silly, really, but fun." She smiles at Regina and she can't deny that she enjoys listening to this woman's self-deprecating tales, her throwaway tone making them all the more exotic, and suddenly she has a real sense of how limited her life with Leopold was.

How sterile.

How provincial.

Always staying at new, impersonal hotels that all looked the same no matter if they were in St. Louis or St. Tropez. No run down palaces in Jaipur for Regina and Leopold White. She wonders how Emma sees her house. Is it nouveau riche? Is it kitsch? Emma Swan is smiling at her even more warmly and she can feel the muscles of her face stretching in reply.

Regina bites down on her teeth, killing the smile. Regina stands.

"Miss. Swan."

"Please, call me Emma."

"Emma, I really do appreciate you traveling all the way up here."

"Oh, not at all." She feels Jeff kicking her ankle, so she steps away.

"But really, I can't—" And as she's about to send Emma packing, with her Bollys and her mahouts and her perfect profile, the doorbell rings. "Excuse me just one moment," Regina says and hurries over to the door, opening it to Mr. Gold. "Mr. Gold? This is a surprise."

"Regina, hello."

"How can I help you Mr. Gold?"

"Regina I know it is little late but," Mr. Gold says, "would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the Spring Ball tomorrow night?"

When Regina, stunned, looks back and sees Jeff and Emma watching from the couch, she realizes that all her options are present in one room: the sad plain pawn shop owner; the gay screenwriter and the down-on-her luck Boston Beauty.

Regina puts a hand on Mr. Gold shoulder. "Mr. Gold, I'm terribly flattered, but I already have a date." She takes his hand and leads him into the living room. "I'd like you to meet my very special friend, Emma Swan." Regina speaks the line as if it were scripted by Jeff who raises his eyebrow along with his glass and gives her a smile of naked triumph.

* * *

People. A procession of people going into Regina Mills' house. Something's afoot.

But what? Maleficent Tillman, her husband's binoculars pressed to her lifted and tucked eyes, stands in the dark in her bedroom, spying on the house opposite. A house that for years has left her in a state of toxic envy, occupied by the loathsome Regina Mills living the life that should have been Maleficent's, with the man who should have been Maleficent's husband.

But the last months have been delicious, seeing Regina dumped for a young girl.

Earlier at the bookstore, Maleficent feared that her heart was going to simply explode with delight when she saw Regina confronted with the pregnant trophy wife.

Oh joy! Even Regina's catty comment about breasts—the barren bitch hadn't whelped twins now had she? And who could blame Maleficent for shoring up what motherhood and gravity had dragged down? —Couldn't dampen her mood, and she'd rushed out to her car, A/C blowing icy air at her while she spread the news to the many, many members of her gossip network.

First, she spoke to Tamara at the beauty parlour. "The new wife is at least three months preggo. It was priceless, absolutely priceless, you should have seen Regina's face."

Next, she spoke to Ursula at the boutique. "The Ball tomorrow night is not to be missed, darling. Regina Mills will be steamrollered by Leopold and his very pregnant young thing."

Finally, she spoke to Milah at the drug store. "Stock up on Ambien my dear, our darling Regina's nerves are going to be absolutely shredded by the time this weekend is over, what with Leopold shoving his new bride and their lovechild in her face."

The thought of going to the Ball tomorrow night, seeing Regina on the arm of that hideous queen Jefferson Hatter, watching the parade of the Young and the Pregnant was something she looked forward to with almost sexual yearning.

But now: these people.

When she saw the new Jaguar purr up, she grabbed the glasses and stood in the window where she had stood for so many years that her footprints were engraved in the pile of the carpet and watched Jefferson Hatter slide out of the passenger seat.

The driver, lit by the bright beam of a streetlight, stood a moment, inspecting the house.

She was a blonde. She was tall maybe 5'7", in her late-twenties, with those finely chiseled looks that spoke of a very deep and very exclusive gene pool, and then she and Jeff walked up toward Regina's front door.

She couldn't see the license plate of the car from upstairs, so she went down to the living room where her slob of a husband lay slumped in his recliner, asleep in front of a ball game. She couldn't look at this man without feeling revulsion. Leopold White had been the gorgeous quarterback, who had kept his looks and athletic frame. Michael Tillman had been a linebacker, and at thirty-three he was bald and fat and didn't seem to give a damn, spending his days selling houses and playing golf and eating like a pig at a trough.

He had planted twins in Maleficent's womb the night of the prom, Maleficent so furious at seeing Regina and Leopold together that she'd allowed Michael to ply her with booze and have his clumsy way with her in the backseat of his father's car.

So, she'd married him.

The Tillmans had money: unglamorous, realtor and car dealership money, and Maleficent had wanted for nothing financially, but seeing Regina and Leopold together day after day, and seeing her twins—a boy and a girl—growing up with the unfinished features and thick bodies of their father, had left her feeling cheated.

Michael, snoring on the chair, doesn't waken as she bumps past him to get to the window. She pulls the drapes open and scans the car.

New York City plates.

A very familiar old Bentley clatters to a halt outside Regina's house and she sees Mr. Gold. He hesitates but goes and rings the bell.

The door opens and Regina let's him in and not two minutes later he comes speed-walking more like speed-limping out. He gets into his car and fights it into gear, lurching off down the road.

Maleficent continues her vigil upstairs. After an hour Jefferson Hatter leaves, walking next door to his house, but the mystery woman stays the night, and Maleficent is left sleepless, in the grip of tormenting curiosity.

* * *

A cold wind blows open diaphanous curtains and Regina can see the glow of full moon, the trill of guitar wafting up to her and the sexy beat of a drum getting her bare feet dancing on the floor.

Despite the cold winds—the air is thick with heat, and Regina feels sheen of sweat beneath the sheer silk shift that covers her naked body. She hears the sound of a footsteps and turns to see Emma Swan striding into the room, bare foot and carrying a riding crop.

"Darling," Regina says huskily, "I thought you'd never come."

Emma tears off her sweat-stained t-shirt, revealing a lean torso corded with muscle, perky nipples due to cold. Emma reaches for her, the riding crop still clenched in Emma's fist. As she takes in Emma's arms, she smells vanilla and an earthy spell. Emma flings her onto the huge bed, enclosing in billowing drapes, and rips the shift from her. Lying on her naked belly, looking over her shoulder at Emma, Regina licks a bead of sweat from her upper lip scar and watches as Emma lifts the rising crop; ready to discipline her in a way she knows she will love oh so terribly much.

When Regina wakes, she is on her belly and she is sweating, but she's in her bed, in her modest nightgown, and there is no riding crop threatening her butt. She clicks on the lamp and checks out the clock. 1:20 a.m.

She gets the A/C going and sips on the Perrier at her bedside and tries to compose herself. The dream is absurd of course, enough to bring a blush to her cheeks. The only person she has ever had an erotic dream about is her ex-husband.

Until tonight, that is.

She sees Emma Swan smiling at her over her wine glass down in the living room, staring at her with those eyes that—she's sure—have drawn endless weak, silly people into her bed. But whatever Regina Mills may be, she's neither weak nor silly, and when she showed Miss. Swan to the guest room on the lower floor last night, she was polite, but aloof, as if she were dealing with a slightly over-familiar employee.

She closes her eyes, but when she sees that torso, nipples, abs and that nasty little black leather-riding crop and hears guitar music she opens them again, pretty darn smartly.

_Breathe, Regina, breathe_. _Just get through this damned Ball and then you can go on with your life. But what is my life_, she asks?

She feels a yawning emptiness and when she closes her eyes tears sting her cheeks and she tries in vain to bring back the guitar and the sweat and the riding crop.

* * *

Emma Swan has felt her share of pain. But, as she sits up in bed in the nauseatingly bland guest room of Regina Mills' shrine to nouveau riche taste (or lack of it) she feels as if her insides are being jabbed at with a molten rod, and her head hurts like ten kinds of hell.

She curses herself for not stocking up on painkillers. The drinks on the train and the wine she had earlier served to dull her aches, but now they have returned with a ferocity that has her moaning.

To distract herself she takes herself on a little virtual tour of this house.

_So bland._ _So sterile._

A place where style comes to die. Emma could identify Chippendale furniture and Meissen porcelain and Ottoman rugs before she was ten years old, and (outside of the occasional airport hotel that she's been forced to sleep in when a flight was delayed) she can't recall being in a dwelling so devoid of mystique.

She thinks of Regina Mills. She is a very good looking woman.

_Very Beautiful. Olive tanned skin. Soulful Brown eyes. Plump Red lips, Hot body. _Okay Emma, snap out of it.

_Let's go with good features, no tell-tale signs of esthetic surgery. _A trim and curved body beneath the blue dress. Like her house: Clean and Elegant. No hint of the decadence, the wantonness, that arouses her.

Not that she's had the pleasure of bedding a woman like that in a long while. With her looks, waitresses and shop girls and baristas are hers for the taking, but her taste runs to the kind of women for whom good looks are a given, but wealth is the greatest aphrodisiac.

Since the loss of her fortune her bed has become an empty place. A jab at her ribs has her wincing, and she can no longer ignore the pain. Dressed in her boxer shorts she goes into the en suite bathroom and checks the medicine cabinet: a toothbrush and toothpaste, dental floss, Listerine, but no painkillers.

Still in her boxers and sports bra, she leaves the bedroom and hurries along the corridor toward the kitchen she glimpsed as Regina led her to her quarters.

Surely she must have some Tylenol stashed in there? Emma hits the lights and recoils as the harsh glare shows her a room as white and sterile as a laboratory.

How can that woman cook in here? Or is she some calorie counter who subsists on smoothies and sprouts?

Emma has the cupboard open, rooting through bowls and cups and saucers when a voice says, "May I help you Miss. Swan?"

* * *

**AN: I want to concentrate on other fan ships too in this story. I want to get coverage on as many characters as I can. So if you see other ships popping out don't freak out please.**

**But END OF THE DAY, SwanQueen will be the main scope.**

**Reviews Please?**


	4. Five-alarm Chili

**Thank you _hunnyfresh _for being my beta reader. **

**A/N: Thank you to other readers for giving the kind reviews. **

**I am sorry if anyone is offended with the concept of my story. I have presented Regina in my story as a strong and kind-hearted woman. She is just Regina not Evil Queen. Emma did not grow up in foster care. She was born with silver spoon. This is an AU. Lets just say that LP and JMo are playing the lead in my story taking the names. :-D  
**

**Don't worry it is just SwanQueen. I will not pair Regina or Emma with anyone else.**

**But there will be Rumbelle, Malchael(Maleficent & Michael), Regina-Hatter & Mal-Ursula bonding.**

**This chapter is little long.  
**

**I don't own the characters or the OUaT show.**

* * *

**Chapter 4:**

When Emma Swan turns to Regina she reveals the lean, muscular torso Regina dreamed of, but her eyes widen in horror rather than admiration when she sees bruises the color of burst fruit—purples and yellows and mauves—that pattern Emma's stomach and back. Before Regina can stop herself she says, "My God, what happened to you?"

Emma shrugs, and Regina sees Emma's attempt at nonchalance causes her to wince.

Regina holds up a hand. "I don't want to know."

"Smart woman."

"I suppose you're looking for painkillers?"

"Unless you have some morphine lying around?"

"Wait here," Regina says and goes upstairs to where Leopold's stash of prescription painkillers is still in her bathroom. When she sees herself in the mirror, her hair mussed, her face shining, her eyes still swollen from her pathetic little crying jag, she is tempted to do a little repair work before she goes back down to him. Then she thinks, _what the hell? Why would she want to primp and preen for a woman who is clearly a degenerate? _

Those bruises came from a boot applied long and deliberately. Regina can only imagine what Emma did to deserve that. She curses Jeff for bringing this woman into her house. Regina has to swallow her anger and resist the impulse to call a cab right now and send Emma Swan packing. All that prevents her is a flashback of Leopold with his hand on the bimbo's belly bulge. So she runs fingers through her hair (damn this female programming) and goes back down, wearing her night robe, her bare feet and her shiny nose like a badge of pride, a rumble in her stomach reminding her of what had drawn to the kitchen in the first place: comfort food.

A slice of bread and cheese.

Emma Swan sits at the kitchen table when she returns. She pours Emma a glass of water and dumps a couple of yellow and black bombs on the table.

"Those look like fun," Emma says, but her smile is weak and she swallows two of the pills immediately.

"I was married to an ex-jock. Old football wounds." Regina crosses to the fridge and gets out some cheese and finds a loaf of bread. "I'm going to make a sandwich. Want one?"

"No, I prefer to take my drugs on an empty stomach. They metabolize faster."

Regina shrugs and slices bread, avocado, tomatoes, brie and lettuce.

Emma says, "Jeff filled me in a little about your ex-husband and his pregnant paramour."

"Good."

"So what you're doing is all about saving face?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"Hell, is he worth it?"

Regina looks up from her preparation, wiping a strand of hair from her cheek. "No, I guess not."

"Then why do it?"

Regina says, "Miss. Swan, let's keep this professional, okay?"

"Sure."

She sits opposite Emma and takes a bite of her sandwich.

"So, talking professionally," Emma says, "what's our backstory?" "What do you mean?"

"Where did we meet?"

"I don't know."

"Well, definitely not here in this town."

"No. But I was away, recently, at a spa."

"Women like me don't go to spas."

"I don't suppose you do . . ."

"Where was this spa?"

"In Napa, California."

"Okay, that I can work with. Let's say I was up there buying a vineyard and you were playing hooky from the spa and we met at a bistro and one thing led to another."

"A little farfetched."

"But serviceable?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

"My family once owned a vineyard up there, actually."

"Really?" Regina wipes a smear of avocado from corner of her lip.

"Long ago." Emma waves a dismissive hand. "Okay, so we met and I swept you off your feet and here I am to take you to the gala event of the year."

Regina stares at Emma. "You think I'm really boring and small town, don't you?"

"Not at all."

"It's okay, I don't mind. I just don't want you to show it tomorrow night. This ball is everything you're going to hate."

"How do you know?"

"Realtors and used car salesmen and dentists in badly fitting tuxedos, their wives squeezed into gowns from hell? The Hamptons it is not."

"I'll contain my distaste."

"We raise a lot of money every year. There's a children's shelter that's pretty much dependent on us for its existence. I know I'm a pathetic joke right now, but those kids aren't. I want the ball to go well. I want to look good and feel good, so I can skin those jumped-up bumpkins of their cash. That's my mission tomorrow night. Can I count on you?"

"Yes," Emma Swan says.

Regina wipes her face on a napkin and leaves Emma sitting there and doesn't look back.

* * *

Mr. Gold has barely slept, his humiliation at Regina Mills' house looping in his mind.

How could he have done that? How could he have made a fool of himself in front of Regina and smarmy Jeff Hatter and that woman who looked like she had stepped out of a super model commercial?

Regina Mills will never be his. Sweet, kind, Regina Mills, the only person who had showed any real sympathy back when he did the unspeakable thing that he did. The memory makes him shudder.

_Rumple Gold drove with his mother beside him and his son in the rear, it was tragic. As they turned off the main road, heading toward the ocean, they found themselves at the foot of the only hill in Storybrooke, and found themselves directly in the path of a runaway ice cream truck, its speakers blaring a tinny, distorted version of the theme from that old movie The Sting. The driver of the truck, dressed in clown make-up with an orange wig, had been battling to control the truck from the top of the hill, and had his hand on the horn._

_The horn and the distorted music growing louder and then the truck hit and there was a massive explosion and when Mr. Gold woke up in hospital with minor burns, concussion and a broken arm, his ex-wife leaned into him and said: "Well done you bastard, you've gone and killed your mama and your son." And that's how it was every day, until Milah cheated on him with Killian Jones and divorced him. Never missing an opportunity to blame Mr. Gold for what he had done. _

And to this day, Poor Rumple can't sleep without nightmares and can't stop blaming himself.

Mr. Gold drags himself into the shower and down the stairs and opens the store.

His cell phone rings and, expecting more humiliation, he checks the caller ID. He is relieved when he sees that it's Darlene, his waitress from the coffee shop he owns.

"Yes, Darlene?"

"Just phoning to tell you sir I'm quitting."

"Why?" Mr. Gold growled.

"I..I.. M-my son wants me to move back to B-boston." And she's gone before Mr. Gold can even think of demanding she work a notice period.

He walks out of his pawnshop and scribbles on a piece of paper and sticks it on the glass door of the Coffee Shop:

HELP WANTED.

Was that ever the truth?

* * *

Jeff Hatter loves Regina Mills. Loves her with all his heart and none of his lower organs, which makes it the perfect friendship. But love her he does. Fiercely and protectively. Ever since he became her next door neighbor four years ago—exiled from the absurd excesses of New York City—they have been friends.

Their friendship started about a month after Jeff moved in, when, as he was taking a little tour of his garden (admiring less the hibiscus and the palms than the oiled limbs of the dusky young man—Raul? Ramon?—wandering around aimlessly with a pool scoop wearing the most adorable denim cutoffs and nothing else) a hedgerow parted and a beautiful brunette woman, pretty he'd thought at the time, popped her head through and said, "Hi, I'm Regina Mills."

"Jeff Hatter," he'd said, extending a languid hand, feeling oh-so-superior to this little matron.

"Mr. Hatter," Regina said.

"Jeff, please."

"Jeff, may I ask you a question?"

"Ask away, my dear."

"Why do you have a pool man when you don't have a pool?"

This had been delivered all wide eyed and deadpan (with the ghost of Marilyn Monroe swishing around in the mix) and then Regina had laughed her surprisingly full laugh and shoved a flute of fairly decent champagne at him, clinked his glass with hers and said, "Welcome to Storybrooke."

So, of course, they became friends. Regina had helped him chart the surprisingly shark-infested waters of Storybrooke's society. The first fin she'd pointed out was the jagged dorsal belonging to their neighbor, Maleficent Tillman. Not surprising, really, that they all lived cheek-to-jowl, like some silly sitcom.

Storybrooke had one street of large houses, all built in the faux hacienda style that was de rigueur, and here the wealthy realtors and dentists and car retailers sported with their wives and their SUVs and their Webers.

Jeff's friends in NYC—the very few he stayed in touch with—had been aghast at this move into the depths of stucco suburbia. But for him it was quite literally a do-or-die decision. Moving out of Bronx fifteen years before, he'd invented a new life and a new name and New York City had welcomed Jeff Hatter.

He was young. He was witty. Within a year he was writing soaps. Not art, but good, solid money, money that bought him an apartment in Upper East Side and nights of partying at the bars in Downtown New York. By the time he was twenty-five he had created Startup, the steamy, sexy, Machiavellian story of love, loss and betrayal in the era. It was a goldmine, and soon Jeff had a house in the Hampton and a platinum-plated drug habit.

That is until he woke up one morning after a week of sad sex and chemical excess, drove north and found Storybrooke. He saw a house for sale and bought it on the spot, and now he ran Startup by remote. His company in New York City, helmed by a pit-bull of a lesbian who had a healthy profit share, churned out the series, and he wrote the character bibles and the story arcs and the odd episode, and oversaw the scripts via email. Life was good. Life was golden.

But he felt for his neighbor and dearest friend.

He had, of course, been very pleased to see the back of Leopold White, but unlike many of the members of Storybrooke's excuse for a society he hadn't rejoiced in Regina's heartache. He simply believed that Leopold White wasn't good enough to lick the pair of Manolo Blahnik's Jeff had taken Regina down to NYC to buy for the ball—along with a very fetching little Valentino number. Leopold, though he had a cute smile and a pert ass, was a Neanderthal. A boring man who had kept his wife trapped inside his lowbrow world.

Jeff saw something in Regina: she had potential. Real potential. Potential to soar far beyond the suburban cage Leopold White had fashioned for her.

But Regina didn't see it herself. Or not yet.

As Jeff takes his daily stroll on Beach, the Atlantic stretching blue and limpid, surfer boys jogging by with their boards, he remembers walking along here with Regina shortly after Leopold left her, their arms entwined, Regina's hair tugged and teased by a chill little wind coming in off the ocean.

"Do you believe in pair-bonding, Jeff?"

"No, darling, I don't."

"I do. Look at swans. They pair for life."

"Gina, where are you going with this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your cob has flown."

She stopped and blinked, wiping a tendril of her from her eyes.

Jeff said, "A male swan is called a cob, darling."

"Oh, okay."

"And if you're trying to write some silly fairy story using a swan analogy, forget it. He's gone. He's not coming back. Good riddance." This had brought tears to her eyes and he'd held her in his arms. "Oh Gina, Gina, Gina. What a cheap little bastard he is."

"I still love him, Jeff."

"I know and he doesn't deserve it."

"I keep hoping he'll come crawling back."

"Swans don't crawl, Regina."

This got the weak laugh it deserved. "Well, come flapping back with one broken wing."

"You'd take him back?"

"Yes." They'd walked on without speaking for a minute, then Regina said, "Each morning I wake up and look in the mirror and ask myself what I did wrong."

This got Jeff turning, and his posh accent slipped for a moment, "Hell, Regina, that's the ripest crap I've ever heard coming from your mouth." She stared at him in astonishment. He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, darling, if I misspoke. But really, what is it with you silly women?"

"What do you mean?"

"That idiot dumped you because of some inadequacy, some flaw in himself. Some need to prove his virility, or have some mush-headed bimbo tell him how great and all-powerful he is. He's the one who has the problem, not you."

"I couldn't give him a child."

"That's just making an excuse for him, Regina, and you know it." He hugged her. "You're wonderful. He's a stupid, limited boy who never bothered to grow up. Move on, darling. Move on, you beautiful pen, move on." She's staring at him again, and he sees his Hallmark poetry has confused her. "A female swan, Gina. A pen."

"God, I thought you were calling me a ballpoint."

"No, never. If you were a writing implement you'd be a quill." They laughed and walked on, Regina doing a good job of pretending she was stitching together her broken heart.

As he returns to his Jeep after his stroll, the memory fading away, something of the screenwriter stirs in Jeff, and he marvels at this little scenario he has set in motion with Regina and Emma.

Jeff's not naïve enough to expect anything lasting to come of it—Swan is a gadfly—but he hopes that an evening in the company of decadent, debauched but very, very worldly and sophisticated Emma Swan may be the start of Regina broadening those horizons.

He's looking forward to the ball, not for the reasons the rest of the town is: to see Regina reduced and humiliated (why do good, kind-hearted women become the targets of this kind of vindictiveness?) He's looking forward to seeing his little swan starting to spread her wings.

Jeff, deep in thought, starts the Jeep and turns out of the parking lot at the beach, crossing the intersection that in Storybrooke has become known as Gold Bend (Regina filling him in on the awful tale of the runaway ice cream truck) when he nearly flattens a young woman who steps off the sidewalk right in front of him. Jeff stands on his brakes and the Jeep comes to a screeching halt just inches from the woman who stares at him blankly.

He has never seen her before, and with her wild hair and pale, windswept beauty, she looks like she's been blown off one of the Brontë sisters' moors, not stepped out of a Storybrooke strip mall.

* * *

Her name is Belle.

Belle Maurice.

When other kids were falling asleep to Dr. Seuss and The Brothers Grimm, her mother was reading her Jayne Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and even though she'd been born in the British Empire, she had grown into a distracted and vague girl with a delicate and romantic disposition, at odds with the world of Twitter and Facebook an on-line dating.

Or any kind of dating.

So, fleeing by Greyhound Bus from the latest Mr. Rochester-not (a grabby traveling salesman from Portland) she finds herself in this little town without knowing quite how she got here or what she's going to do now.

She stepped off the bus to use the bathroom at the gas station, became distracted by a display of flowers in the little garden, and quite failed to notice that the coach had driven away with her bag in its belly.

Oh well.

These things happen to Belle Maurice. Happen with remarkable regularity. So, with nothing but the clothes on her back and a couple of dollars in the little cloth bag that hangs from her shoulder, she walks along the sidewalk, the breeze tugging at the long dress she wears, showing a pair of bird-like ankles ending in ballet pumps.

Following some internal GPS she steps off the curb almost in front of a jeepy thing—the driver shouting and saying something unflattering.

He roars off and she wanders across the road, pleased at the near-accident, because it got her looking where she was going, otherwise she would have quite missed the coffee shop with the sheet of paper Scotch-taped to its glass door:

HELP WANTED.

Good, this was a sign.

_Well, of course it's a sign, Belle, you clot. _

_A rather tidy, handwritten sign. _

_No, not that kind of sign. _

_A sign sign. _

A message, telling her that she has come to the right place. Standing there, inhaling her two favorite smells—books and coffee—mixed into a heady perfume, Belle feels a sudden jolt of raw happiness.

"Morning, need assistance dearie?" She turns to see a short, wild haired man, with a beautifully ugly large-boned face. He holds a walking stick.

"No, but clearly you do."

"Do I?" He stares at her, perplexed, and she sees he has brown eyes, wide and without guile.

Belle points toward the door. "The sign."

"Ah, the sign. The sign. Yes. Yes I do."

"Do you have any experience?" he asks.

"Well, I love coffee."

"Oh, okay. Great, Miss . . .?"

"Belle Maurice."

"Belle like . . .?"

"Beauty and the Beast."

The man sticks out a hand and says, "I'm Mr. Gold."

She shakes the hand and this touch seems to send her into a spin—literally—she rotates 360 degrees, scratches her head, and then decides to sit.

Mr. Gold tries to hold her but she pulls him with her. Now they are on the floor looking at each other. What felt like hours was only seconds.

Mr. Gold gets up with the help of her. Cursing. "Oh, hell." Then he shrugs. "Still want the job?"

"Yes. Very much."

"When can you start?"

The bell rings as the door opens and a couple of very tanned women in tennis togs come in and head for one of the tables in the coffee shop. Belle lifts two menus from the counter—something about this man has stirred a boldness in her—and says, "Right now."

* * *

Maleficent Tillman and Ursula Johnson from Ursula's Fashions (Storybrooke's smartest boutique) take their seats in the coffee shop. Maleficent, still flushed and pumped from beating the slightly younger and taller Ursula in straight sets over at the country club (the two of them pausing between points to watch the tables and bandstand and paraphernalia being delivered for tonight's Spring Ball) looks around in the hope of spotting Regina Mills and her mystery woman, but the bookstore is empty of customers.

A girl she has never seen before, a strange, pale creature with the face of a horse and a thicket of wild hair, comes over carrying menus.

"Where's Darlene?" Maleficent asks.

"I have no idea," the girl says.

Maleficent sighs. "God, how boring. That means I'm going to have to break you in."

"Sounds painful," the girl says, deadpan. Maleficent searches her face for signs of insolence, but finds none. Finds nothing, in fact. _What a blank slate she is._ Maleficent launches into a detailed description of how she wants her coffee and her croissant, the instructions so intricate and pernickety they have reduced many waitresses to tears. But this girl writes nothing down.

"Have you got that?"

"Yes."

"I don't see a notebook." The girl taps her unruly mop.

"All up here. I have an eidetic memory."

"A what?"

"What's commonly known as a photographic memory. I forget nothing."

"Well, you get my order wrong and you won't be forgetting me, you hear?"

"I also have perfect pitch. That means my hearing is remarkably developed."

"You getting fresh with me, missy?"

"Oh no, ma'am." And she's gone.

Ursula shakes her head. "Where does Mr. Gold finds them?"

"Rumple is an idiot."

"What was he doing at Regina's house last night?"

"God, I wish I knew. But even more I wish I knew who the woman was who spent the night."

Ursula leans forward, whispering. "Tell me about her again."

And even though Maleficent, in the locker room at the club, had regaled Ursula with the events of last night, she describes the woman again, in great and fulsome detail.

"She sounds pretty."

"She was," Maleficent says, batting her false eyelashes.

"You're sure she didn't slip next door with that Jeff character?" "No way. Jeff went home on his little old lonesome."

"How absolutely intriguing."

"Isn't it just?" Maleficent says.

"Tonight is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. I would not miss it for the world."

The girl arrives with her coffee and Maleficent, ready for battle, sips at it.

"Is it to madam's satisfaction?" the girl says.

To Maleficent's annoyance the coffee is perfect.

"It's okay." With just the hint of a curtsey the girl is gone.

"I don't like her," Maleficent says.

"She's creepy."

"She won't last."

"No."

"Nobody can take working for that Idiot for too long."

They watch Mr. Gold walking out of the coffee shop to his pawnshop, but Maleficent notices something: she finally sees an expression on the girl's face. She is smiling as she watches Mr. Gold walking away.

"Ooooh," Maleficent says. "I think Miss Downtown Abbey's got the hots for Rumple."

"Well good luck to her," Ursula says.

"He'll never stop mooning over Regina."

"No, he won't."

"I don't suppose he'll be there tonight, will he?"

Maleficent shakes her head. "No, sadly. That would've added even more spice wouldn't it?"

"Mmmm. But it's spicy enough, Mal." Ursula is one of the very few permitted to call her this.

"Oh, it's going to be a regular Five-alarm Chili." And they give an evil laugh and lean into one another, toothy as a couple of great whites circling in bloody waters.

* * *

**Reviews Please?**


	5. Emma vs Leopold

**Chapter 5:**

* * *

Regina sits at her make-up table, blinking as she applies eyeliner. She stares at herself in the mirror and suddenly feels drained of all vitality.

_Come on, Regina,_ she tells herself. _Come on, Regina_.

But she turns on the stool and looks at the empty bedroom, remembering all the nights she'd dressed for the Spring Ball, going back five years, when Leopold made his first million (some property coup that had resulted in a horrible condo development farther up the coast) and she'd persuaded him to bankroll the event.

Leopold, if not exactly a mean-spirited man, was no philanthropist, but he'd been shrewd enough to see the benefits of the ball: the wealthy from Storybrooke and its sister towns gathered together in one room in the spirit of charity, and he'd agreed.

The ball became an institution. Each year Leopold made a short speech and then handed the microphone over to Regina who had the most charming way of shaming and bullying the partygoers to part with their money.

Getting dressed had always been really sexy to her. There'd been a ritual. Leopold so handsome in his tuxedo, coming to her to tie his bowtie and fix his cufflinks. Regina, radiant in one of the simple black outfits she bought each year for the ball.

But tonight Leopold is over at the Ramada Inn with his new wife, and Regina has the sickening image of the two of them spread naked and sweaty on the hotel bed, his hand on Jenna's belly. Regina, dressed only in her nightgown, jumps up from the make-up table, filled with a wild panic that leaves her desolate and disorientated.

_Champagne._

That's what she needs. There may be no Leopold this year, but there damned well will be champagne. So beside herself is Regina that she quite forgets wearing the robe and that she is nearly naked. And quite forgets that she has a houseguest as she runs down the staircase to the kitchen, to find a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator.

The sound of applause shocks her from her fugue.

A woman, a ridiculously both beautiful and handsome woman dressed in the most stylish tuxedo she has ever seen—a tuxedo that perfectly fits her tall, lean frame—_how can someone so feminine be so masculine at the same time_— stands at the bottom of the stairs, watching her, clapping there hands.

"Bravo," Emma Swan says, "You make me feel overdressed." Regina stares at her, catapulted out of her trance.

She shrieks and falls into the comical routine of trying to cover too much flesh with two few hands, all the while edging back up the stairs.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry, I . . ."

Emma widens her eyes then makes a production of covering them with her hand. "You forgot you had company. I understand. Is there anything I can get you?"

Regina, safely in the corridor upstairs, shouts: "Champagne. There's champagne on ice in the kitchen. Pour us some please, I'll be down in a minute."

She sits back down at the mirror and shakes her head at her reflection. "Hell, Regina, you're in a bad way."

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe_.

She finishes her make-up, slips on her ridiculously expensive Valentino ball gown and walks down the stairs to where Emma Swan waits with a glass of champagne.

Emma watches her with lustful eyes. Taking everything and capturing it as an image in her head. Regina feels awkward and clears her throat that gets Emma to snap out of her clouded vision.

"You look beautiful," Emma says.

"Thank you." Regina blushes.

"Although I still think the earlier number was a little racier."

"Miss. Swan you'll kindly erase that from your memory."

"Not easily." Emma raises her glass. "To us."

"To us," Regina says and drinks her champagne.

As Emma leads her toward the door, Regina checks out the mirror in the hallway and she has to admit they make a striking couple. Maybe it's the champagne doing its mischief in her empty belly—when last did she eat? —But the image of Emma Swan wielding a riding crop flits across her mind and before she can stop herself she says,

"Do you ride, Emma?"

"Of course. Why?"

"No reason." But she's smiling to herself as they cross to the Emma's car. _Are you flirting, Regina? _

_Yes,_ she decides.

She is, and little excitement stirs in Regina. Maybe tonight won't be so bad, after all.

* * *

Maleficent Tillman, teetering down her driveway on stilt-like high heels, nearly falls when she sees the gorgeous woman handing Regina Mills into the shiny new Jaguar.

So discomforted is she that Maleficent—who hasn't touched her vile husband in years—grabs hold of Michael's arm to stop herself from landing flat on her face.

"Whassamadder?" Michael says in his Homer Simpson voice, even in a tuxedo looking like what he is: a fat loser.

"Nothing," Maleficent says, retrieving her hand and using her Pilates-toned core muscles to steady herself. But she can't drag her eyes away from the opposite sidewalk, where Regina and the mystery woman are lit by the dome light of the car.

They are laughing and Regina looks far too happy for a woman in her situation.

And the woman . . . God, the woman . . . When Maleficent watched her through the glasses last night she saw that woman was beautiful, but now, as she and Michael approach their Lexus—her slob of a husband not dreaming of opening the door for her—she can see the stranger up close and what she sees has her shocked her to the core.

That woman is tall and moves with the kind of grace that only a woman who comes from rich and well groomed roots.

Her face, as she turns to smile at Regina, is chiseled and pretty.

_How did Regina find this woman? _

Maleficent, lowering herself into the Lexus that stinks of stale cigarettes and soiled golf socks, understands her mission for tonight: find out the truth about The Tall and Pretty Mysterious Stranger.

* * *

Jeff Hatter hands the keys to his vintage Porsche to the valet—Jeff is a car nut and has one for every occasion—and stands a while on the lawn of the Storybrooke Country Club, watching the last of the sun fade from the sky.

There he sees Regina walking towards him with Emma Swan in tow.

"Regina, you look gorgeous," he says.

"Doesn't she?" Emma says in that overbred voice of hers.

As Regina waves and calls a greeting to a couple who are walking up the stairs into the club, Jeff puts his mouth very close to Emma's ear and says in his best Bronx accent, "Screw this up and I'll make your life miserable? Hear me?"

"Loud and clear, old boy. Loud and clear," Swan says.

"What's loud and clear?" Regina asks.

Jeff says, "Just silly talk, Gina."

But she is no longer looking at him. She's looking across to where Leopold White and his young bride—a vision of loveliness, even Jeff has to acknowledge—approach them up the stairs.

Emma Swan comes face-to-face with her natural enemy: the jock.

And the man walking toward her, as tall and broad-shouldered as any other jock, is a man who thrives in that atmosphere, wallowing in the admiration of lesser specimens.

Emma needs no introduction to know that this is Leopold White.

But Jeff does the introductions, and when Leopold tries to peck Emma, she moves back commenting 'I am more of a hand shake kind of a person' and offers a hand.

Leopold takes the hand and squeezes it in a painful grip; Emma (sighing inwardly) squeezes back and sees the little glimmer of surprise in Leopold's eyes.

Then the surprise is replaced with something cold and calculating, and Emma curses herself for being drawn into this pathetic display. The last thing she needs is this idiot's attention.

"So where do you hail from, Emma?" Leopold says.

"Boston, originally."

"And how have you washed up on our shores?"

Regina takes Emma's arm and says, "We're cluttering the stairs, let's go on in. We can chat inside."

She flicks her eyes over to Jenna. "You look wonderful, my dear. Isn't it amazing what they can do with maternity wear these days?"

And Emma, letting Regina draw her up the stairs and into the ugly little fake Spanish building, feels a twinge of admiration for Regina Mills.

* * *

Regina walks into the spotlight that has been waiting to ambush her, and the band strikes up "Livin' La Vida Loca," the song that had always been Regina's and Leopold's.

Nobody had thought to brief the bandleader to come up with an alternative. And, with every eye on her and Emma Swan, it's all Regina can do to smile and nod graciously at a smattering of applause from the packed room.

The spotlight skids off Regina and finds Leopold and Jenna, right on their heels. She is gratified at the noticeably less enthusiastic applause, the major clapping coming from Maleficent Tillman, standing up out of her seat at her aisle table, leaning into Leopold and whispering something into his ear that makes him smile one of his hungry smiles.

As she and Emma take their table right up by the bandstand, Regina thinks back to that moment on the stairs. What was it that she had seen when Leopold and Emma shook hands? There was that sizing up thing, and she couldn't help but notice the silly schoolyard squeezing session, but it was the expression in Leopold's eyes that she couldn't shake, when he'd looked from her to Emma. _An expression of ownership. _

_He still loves me_, Regina thinks and despite herself her heart skips a beat.

_Idiot. _Even though he's moved on, in Leopold's mind Regina is still his property. If bigamy were legal in this country, she realizes, Leopold would have stocked up on wives like gangbusters.

She looks over at Leopold sitting at the next table, lifting a glass of champagne to his lips, and conflicting emotions swirl through her. Sadness. Loss. And something unfamiliar.

For the first time she's able to really feel what Jeff has been urging her to feel for months: a raw jolt of hundred-proof anger. Leopold, lifting his glass to her in salute, says, "Cheers."

And she smiles her best smile, raises her glass in turn and mouths, "I hope you choke on the bubbles, you cheating bastard."

* * *

This is Jeff's fourth Spring Ball, and the food (canapés and some chicken thing that he shoves away in disgust) is as revolting as ever. The band is somnambulistic, snoozing their way though elevator-muzak standards.

He (like the awkward family member at a wedding) is seated at a table at the rear, with the horribly dull couple that owns the dry-cleaners.

Leopold struts up to the microphone as the band wheezes to a halt. Smiling the best smile that money can buy, he thanks one and all for coming, vacuums up the applause like the true egoist he is, and allows Regina the stage.

This is where Regina Mills shines, and tonight, in her beautiful dress, with her diamond earrings and matching necklace dangling over those very shapely collarbones, is no different.

"Welcome," she says, scanning the crowd, "it's a real pleasure to see such a wonderful turnout."

Jeff is filled with pride when he hears no hesitation in her voice, even though he knows how tough this is for her.

"Please get ready to dig deep into those wallets. There are a bunch of very special children out there whose lives will be transformed by your generosity."

And so begins the auction.

The objects are not important: drinking glasses, bottles of unremarkable wine and boxes of chocolates, merely an excuse to get these people to part with their money.

Regina holds up an ugly German beer stein.

"The opening bid for this is one thousand dollars." With no trouble at all, Regina rattles through a series of bids and unloads the tankard on a local contractor for five thousand dollars.

She gets good money for a Chilean cabernet and the ugliest vase he has ever seen.

Jeff, as always, waits for the last item to be auctioned before he joins the fray.

This is when the fun begins, when the big boys take each other on.

Regina, holding up a bottle of sparkling wine says, "We are now on our last bid. Traditionally showdown time here at the Spring Ball. Who will give me five thousand dollars?"

And Leopold, also waiting, lifts his hand. "Six," he says.

Jeff wags a finger. "Seven."

"Eight," Leopold says.

"Nine," Jeff says, alarming the couple at his table.

And so it goes on, a realtor and a hotelier entering the brawl, and finally at fifty thousand, Leopold thinks he has it all sewn up as always—the guy with biggest bid—when Jeff says, "Sixty thousand."

Mrs. Chemi-clean nearly swallows her dentures, and Jeff is pleased to see Leopold narrowing his eyes like a gunslinger.

Leopold has money, but sixty thousand in this economic climate—with an expensive divorce under his belt—has got to bruise him. "Sixty-five," Leopold says.

Jeff, enjoying himself now, keeps increasing the bid in multiples of ten, and Leopold looking increasingly less affable, trumps him each time.

The room falls silent when Jeff says "One hundred thousand dollars," by far the biggest bid every recorded in the history of the Spring Ball.

You could hear a mouse burp as Jeff looks across at Leopold. The man glugs down his champagne and blinks. When he speaks his voice is just a little hoarse. "One hundred and five thousand dollars."

Jeff is tempted to go higher, but he decides he has punished Leopold sufficiently and shakes his head.

Regina, her smile as dazzling as her necklace, says, "Sold to the fabulously generous Leopold White for one hundred and five thousand dollars." The band strikes up something noisy and Regina steps down, blowing Jeff a kiss.

He raises his glass.

"Bad luck," Mr. Chemi-clean says with a smug smile.

"Oh, the better man won," Jeff says, drowning his laugh in the cheap bubbly.

* * *

Emma stands outside for some air and drinking her champagne and suddenly she feels eyes on her back, turns around to find Leopold White walking up to her.

"Congratulations," Emma says.

"Why, thank you." Leopold stands beside her drinking his scotch.

"I notice you never bid, Miss. Swan?"

"Oh, I don't believe in meddling in tribal rituals foreign to me." Leopold turns to face Emma.

"Is that how you see us? As tribesmen?"

"Merely a figure of speech."

Leopold takes a step forward invading Emma's personal space.

Emma is amused to see that the man is battling to contain his rage.

"Enjoy the rest of the evening." Emma turns to walk away but Leopold sticks out an arm and blocks Emma's way.

Emma, still feeling the pain of the recent beating, knows she is in no shape to take this moron on, and the painkillers, lack of food and too much sticky champagne have left her lightheaded.

"I'm on to you, Miss. Ivy League," Leopold says.

"Are you now?"

"Word is that you met Regina up at some vineyard in Napa?"

"Yes, that's true." Emma is relieved to see an elderly man walking through.

"Evening, Leopold."

"Evening, Earl."

"Very generous as always," the man says.

Leopold grunts and when Emma prods at his arm he lets it drop, but he dogs Emma's heels, whispering in her ear.

"This whole thing stinks."

"Yes, maybe they should put some air refreshers around here." "Listen you smug bitch, I know what's going on."

"Really?"

"That little fairy Jeff Hatter organized this, didn't he?"

"You've lost me, old boy."

"I think you're playacting, _little girl_. I know my Regina, she'd never get involved with someone like you."

"She's hardly your Regina any longer, is she?" Emma says as lightly as she can. _Why I am feeling angry and jealous at same time. _Emma shakes her head.

"I'm going to put the word out, smartass. You'll leave here tonight with your tail between your legs."

As she walks away Emma feels Leopold White's eyes on her back, and she realizes that she has underestimated the man. A small town oaf he may be, but he proves to be a shrewd one.

* * *

Maleficent, fanning herself with a menu, watching couples lumbering around the dance floor, thinks she's dreaming when somebody takes her arm and she turns and looks up into the face of Leopold White.

"May I have the honor of this dance?" he says.

"Oh, Leopold, of course," she stammers, back in high school again, her braces getting in a tangle every time she sees to-die-for Leopold in his football gear.

Leopold takes her onto the floor, and leans in close. For one crazy, wonderful, second Maleficent thinks he's going to kiss her, and her eyes are already closing, her lips puckering, when he whispers, "You don't like Regina much, do you?"

Her eyes blink open and she stumbles.

Leopold keeps her afloat with a strong arm at her waist.

"Why do you say that?" she says.

"C'mon, Mal, it's okay. I'm on your side?"

"You are?"

"Yep. And I know something that I think you'll find very interesting."

"You do?"

"Uh huh."

"What?"

"This girl, this Emma Stink character who Regina has dragged here tonight, I think she's a fake. I think it's a set up."

"Really? She seems very attentive to her."

"She's playing a role. She's some, what do you call them? Escort." Maleficent stares at him in amazement. "How do you know this?"

"I just know it, Mal. No way in hell Regina will get a girl to an event like this and risk her popularity."

"But Regina came out months before and no one in the town took it wrong."

"She's a stooge. It's all the work of Jeff Hatter, that I can tell you." "What do you want me to do?"

"What you do best, Mal. Talk. Gossip. Get the word out." The music ends and Leopold gives her a little shove. "Go on, what are you waiting for?"

Maleficent seeing him walking away from her, realizes that—yet again—he cares only for Regina.

Still cares enough to want her humiliated.

Maleficent bottles her anger and disappointment and focuses it, staring across the room at where Regina stands chatting to a group of people. Like a cowcatcher on the snout of a train, Maleficent forces her way though the crowds, ready to go and confront Regina and bring the little bitch down a peg or two.


	6. Will you marry me?

**Thank you _hunnyfresh_ for not only being my Beta Reader but you helped me out with the kiss scene. It is amazing! And as always say you are amazing...**

* * *

**Chapter 6:**

Emma—hand under her shirt, rubbing at her mother's ring to soothe her—watches Leopold dancing with a hard-faced woman, their eyes drawn to Regina, and has a crystal clear flash of precognition. She knows without knowing how she knows that this woman is Regina's enemy, and that Leopold is priming her with what he has intuited. When Leopold unhands her at the end of the dance, and virtually shoves her in his ex-wife's direction, the woman elbowing her way through the revelers to where Regina stands, Emma asks herself why she gives a damn.

_This isn't her fight. _

She's way above this. And that's her answer right there: why the hell should she stay meek and quiet in this room full of poorly dressed, jumped-up peasants? She is a woman of pedigree. Of breeding.

She is also a woman filled with painkillers and cheap bubbly. A woman looking for trouble as she spins on her heel and heads toward the bandstand.

Regina, drinking champagne, talking to a group of Storybrooke's most prominent citizens—the mayor pumping his hand and thanking her for what she has achieved tonight—has been able to put her sadness and her anger aside.

The night has been a success. Money (more money than ever before thanks to Jeff) has been raised, and Emma Swan has played her part impeccably. Emma has drawn no attention to herself—even though her looks are show stopping—and has let Regina do what she is here to do.

Emma has made sure she always has a drink in her hand, she's danced with Emma (a good dancer without being flashy) and she feels that Emma somehow has got her, understood without being told what she needed tonight.

Emma deserves her thanks, but when she looks around the room, her eyes skidding over the odious Maleficent Tillman who is bearing down on her, and tries to find Emma, she is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Maleficent grabs Regina's arm and says, "You're paying her aren't you?"

Regina turns to her, "I beg your pardon?"

"That Swan girl. You're paying her. She's like some escort, isn't she?"

The mayor, his wife, and their friends are staring at Regina, who feels her composure slipping.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You couldn't bear to come here tonight on Jeff Hatter's arm, not with Leopold being here with his pregnant wife, so you paid some girl. I saw her arriving at your house with Jeff Hatter last night. She's just some actress isn't she? Pretending to be your date? God, Regina, how humiliating!"

Regina feels her cheeks burning and she's ready to flee into the night when the band comes to a ragged stop and she hears Emma Swan's voice, saying, "Ladies and gentlemen if I may ask you to indulge me for a minute."

Regina looks at the bandstand, and there Emma stands, in the spotlight, staring at her.

_Is the woman drunk? Drugged? Deranged? All of the above?_

"I'm sure some of you are wondering who I am," Emma says.

"Oh, I've got your number, lady," Maleficent says.

"Wondering how I was lucky enough to meet the wonderful Regina?" Emma points at her. "I've known Regina for only a few short weeks, but by knowing her my life has been transformed and—even though she will find this display of public affection embarrassing—I want to declare my love for her and ask her a question."

Regina stands stunned as Emma steps off the bandstand—looking nimble and lithe, no sign of her injuries—and walks over to her, the spotlight following her.

Emma gets down on one knee and holds up a ring that sparkles like flame in the light.

"Regina, I know this is too early in our relationship, but all my life I was missing something, which I didn't realize until you entered my life. The first time I saw you, you blew my mind. The connection I felt with you was irresistible. Then I realized that I want to wake up everyday seeing your beautiful smile and you in my arms. So, Regina Mills will you marry me?"

And Regina, knowing in that moment exactly how a deer in the headlights feels, stares around the room:

Sees Leopold with a stunned expression on his face.

Sees his silly child bride looking bewildered.

Sees Maleficent Tillman's mouth fallen open in a cartoonish O. And then she hears something, in the absolute silence that has followed Emma Swan's outrageous declaration, hears a voice, realizes that it is her voice and that she is saying, "Of course, Emma, of course I will marry you."

And that ring—good God how many rocks on that thing? —Slides onto her finger and when Emma stands and kisses her (the woman can kiss) she feels the fireworks in her head and swoons into Emma's arms. The blonde's lips move fluidly against hers, as if they have been moving together for ages. Despite having all eyes on her, Regina can't help but allow the whimper to escape as she presses closer to Emma, deepening the kiss. And Emma isn't shy. Much to the brunette's delight the blonde snakes her tongue into Regina's mouth so quickly before pulling back. Regina allows herself to be swept onto the dance floor to the sound of loud applause, and it's not the band she's hearing stumbling through "Isn't She Lovely", it's the sound of guitar and drums.

Emma takes the lead, pulls Regina closer. By now every part of Regina's body is on fire.

* * *

Mr. Gold is down on the beach at dawn, staring at the wooden pier that disappears out into the fog, thinking the rickety jetty is a great metaphor for his life, his future stretching off into a cloud of nothingness.

Averting his eyes from the spot where the horrible accident happened, he crosses the road toward Granny's all-night diner.

Perhaps a cup of coffee and a plate of Granny's eggs will restore him.

As he takes a booth to sit, someone drops in front of him and now he is staring at the face of Belle Maurice.

"Good morning," he says, "how nice of you to join me."

"Oh, thanks, yes," she says, getting her breath back. "I hope you don't mind?"

"No, I don't. Not at all."

Granny is there in her apron, her dyed hair. "Your usual, Mr. Gold?"

"Yes, Granny. Thank you."

Granny glowers at Belle. "Heads-up missy: the bottomless cup of coffee just hit bottom."

The woman strides off.

"Can I ask you something Mr. Gold?" Belle said.

"Uh.. Sure dearie."

"What is your name?"

"Oh it is Rumple, but there are only few in this town who calls me that."

"I will call you Rumple too."

Mr. Gold just laughs. _There is something about this woman._

"So, Belle, how are you liking Storybrooke?"

"Oh, I find it very congenial, thank you."

"Found yourself a place to stay?"

When the girl stares at him and then blushes into her empty coffee cup, something dawns on Mr. Gold and he surfaces from his all-consuming and terribly selfish funk.

"Oh, dearie, you spent the night here, didn't you?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"But where are your things?"

"I have no things." She tells him about becoming distracted by that display of petunias and the bus driving off with her bag. Mr. Gold shakes his head; this is a story worthy of him.

"Okay, I know somebody at the bus company. I'll make a couple of calls and I'm sure they'll be able to deliver your bag sometime today."

She's staring at him. "You'd do that? For me?"

He shrugs. "Sure." He clears his throat. "Now, forgive me if this is embarrassing, Belle, but I have to ask: are you, I mean, do you . . ."

"I'm broke, Rumple, if that's what you're so kindly asking. I spent my last money on the bus ticket."

"Ah, right. Well, you must allow me to give you an advance on your wages."

"That would be an extraordinary act of kindness."

"Oh, please, it's nothing."

"No, it's not nothing. It's very definitely something. A bigger something than anybody has ever done for me."

Mr. Gold's eggs arrive, and Granny—kind hearted despite her prizefighter face and shoulders—pours Belle another cup of coffee.

"Just because you're a pal of Mr. Gold's I'll make an exception," she says, "but only this one time, hear?" She shoves a thick finger in Belle's face. "And get yourself a room."

The girl cowers and nods, sipping at her coffee.

"Come with me," he says, feeling unusually kind and helpful. "Where to?"

"I can offer you a place to stay. It's not fancy, but it's a roof over your head."

"Where is it?" she asks.

He points across at the pawn shop. "Above the store. With me."

Her eyes cloud over and he feels a blush rising, leaving him looking like a red stop light.

"Oh, dearie, no, I don't mean with me, with me. I mean above the store, next door to where I live. A place that is completely separate and self-contained."

She's smiling up at him as she slides from the booth. "That sounds wonderful."

"Wonderful may be stretching it dearie," he says, leading her out into the morning. When he sees that she's about to wander into the path of the postman's truck, Mr. Gold shoots out a hand to restrain her.

"Oh dear, thanks, Rumple. I seem to do that all the time, step in front of cars, I mean."

Granny, standing in the window of her diner, smiles as she watches them make their way across the road, Belle chattering, swiping wild hair from her face, Mr. Gold limping towards his pawn shop and disappearing up the stairs. Granny, one of the first on the scene that horrible afternoon twenty years ago, shakes her head and says, "You go, Rumple. You go for it."

* * *

The most ridiculous dream wakes Regina. It was a dream that Emma Swan kissed her. A dream that she and Emma Swan were dancing and laughing on the dance floor. A dream that Emma Swan proposed to her at the Spring Ball.

And the craziest part of the dream is that Regina said yes, with the whole of Storybrooke looking on.

As she surfaces from under the comforter to face the day, a sledgehammer strikes Regina on the back of the head, and it takes all her willpower to stay upright.

She groans and as she lifts a hand to her face and a hot beam of sun finds its way through a chink in the drapes, striking the constellation of rocks on her ring finger, she realizes that it was no dream.

_Oh. My. God. It happened. It honest-to-girl-scout-cookies happened. _

Emma proposed and she accepted. With the whole town as witness.

Regina falls back and covers her face with pillow.

She sees Leopold staring at her in shock as she smiled down at the kneeling Emma Swan and agreed to marry her. The memory of that look—the normally oh-so-cool Leopold White caught with his jaw dragging on his bootstraps—almost makes her feel better. Almost but not quite.

_Handle this, Regina. Contain this madness. _

As she rises from the bed she sees she's dressed in her night gown, but has no recollection of shedding her ball gown that lies on the floor like something from the last act of Swan Lake. In fact, she has very few recollections beyond agreeing to Emma's proposal and then proceeding to drink enough champagne to sink a battleship.

Regina reaches the bathroom mirror and assesses the damage. Raccoon eyes. Porcupine hair. Lion breathe.

She brushes her teeth and her tongue and rinses with mouthwash, then scrubs her face and sets her hair.

Looking more like the sane and sensible Regina Mills, she sheds her PJs and slips on skinny jeans and blouse and takes to the stairs, each step setting off a steel band in her head.

As she reaches the hallway she hears the sound of somebody busy in the kitchen, and—straightening herself up to her full height—sails in saying, "Miss. Swan we have to talk."

But it's Jeff Hatter who stands at the spitting and gurgling coffee maker, looking disgustingly fresh in a pair of Banana Republic shorts and Lacoste top.

He lifts a cup. "Want some?"

"God, yes, black as pitch and no sugar." She slumps down at the table. "Where is she?"

"Your betrothed?"

"Cut the wisecracks, Jeff." She closes her eyes then looks up at him. "Please tell me it didn't happen."

"Oh, but it did, darling and it was the most sensational bit of theater I've seen since the opening night of Les Mis. This little burg was shaken to its core."

Regina groans. "I have no idea what got into me."

"Well, let's say quite a lot of bubbly and a perfectly understandable desire to get even. And you know what they say, darling: if you can't get even, get married?"

"Who says that?"

"I just did and it's damned good. I'll use it somewhere."

"Okay, Spencer Tracy let's cut the screwball routine. Did you put Emma up to it?"

"The proposal?"

"Yes."

Jeff stares at her in genuine astonishment. "Good God, no, darling. As talented a scenarist as I am, I couldn't have scripted that one. Wowee, talk about a season finale!"

"Then why did she do it?"

"You'll have to ask her."

"I will. Where is she?"

"Driving the Jaguar back to NYC."

Suddenly Regina feels sad and disappointed but she shakes her head and wags her ring finger. "She left this behind."

"She knows she did. She came knocking on my door at an indecently early hour, terribly contrite. She says you gave her some pain killers."

"Yes, something Leopold used to take for his knee."

"Well, Emma is blaming them. Says they turned her brain to Jell-O."

"And she ran away, too scared to face me?"

"Actually, it was my suggestion that she disappear."

"Why?"

"To heighten the drama, darling. Deepen the mystique. The tall and beautiful stranger proposes to the town's most eligible bachelorette—"

"Divorcée."

"Have it your way. Proposes and then leaves, called away on urgent business, her bride-to-be pining and staring at the far horizon, dreaming of her return."

Regina glugs down her coffee, not even noticing when it scalds her throat. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Enormously. And so should you."

"I have to come clean about this. Publicly."

"You'll do no such thing."

"I've lied to the town I've lived in my whole life, Jeff. To the people I've known since I was in pigtails."

"Mnnnn."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Why, because I'm some gay Johnny-come-lately who lives a lie himself? Fake name, fake accent, fake tan?"

"The tan's real."

"Thanks for noticing. Well, newsflash sweetie, I do understand. I understand that all those dear down-homey chums of yours, the one you've known since forever, have been spreading their morning toast with thick dollops of schadenfreude."

"Speak American."

"They have enjoyed seeing you torn apart. They have enjoyed seeing you suffer. You were too good, too nice, and too perfect. They have loved, loved, loved, seeing you bleed. So screw them, Regina. Screw them."

She stares at him. "You really believe that?"

"You know I'm right. At least Maleficent Tillman nails her skull and crossbones to the masthead, but the rest of them are even worse, watching from behind their little smiles and polite hellos. You owe this town nothing. No, I'm wrong, you owe it a swift Jimmy Choo in the rump."

Regina stares out the window at the perfectly blue sky. "I can't do it, Jeff it's not me." She tugs at the ring on her finger but it doesn't budge. "God, I'm going to have to use soap to get this thing off."

"It's like the Cinderella slipper, Gina. It's made for you."

"Stop being kitsch." She wags her finger. "Are these rocks real?"

"Well, I don't have my jeweler's loupe screwed in, but, yes, they're real. Diamonds and sapphires."

"It must be worth a fortune."

"Oh it is, but its value is far greater than that."

Regina waits for the one-liner but it doesn't come. "What do you mean?"

"It was Emma's mother's ring. She died giving birth to her, and she's worn it on a chain around her neck her whole life. It's her lucky charm. I'm sure you realize she's been financially strapped the last while?"

"Yes. You told me."

"But she never hocked that ring. Not even to save herself a beating."

"Then I must return it to her."

"She told me she wants you to keep it safe for her. Away from temptation."

"It should be in a vault somewhere."

"She trusts you, Gina." Jeff gives her a long look. "Do me a favor." "What?"

"Keep the ring on your finger. Keep up this pretense, just for a day or two."

"Why?"

"Because it's been a tonic for you, darling. I thought I'd lost the Regina I know and love until I saw her again at the ball last night. It's a bit of magic. Stay under its spell just a little while longer." He takes her hand.

"Promise?" She stares at him, and then at last she nods. "Okay, I promise."

* * *

Emma Swan returns the Jaguar to the rental company near the Four Seasons Hotel and stands a while outside the lobby of the hotel, tempted to stroll into its bar and order a cocktail. God knows she's earned one and the money that Jeff Hatter gave her for playing her little role burns a hole in her pocket.

No, she's going to jump a cab and head over to Raymond Gomez's lair and give the bookie enough money to get her off her back for a while.

But, as Emma stands on 57th street, trying to hail a cab, she sees a bar across the road, one of those tacky places that grow out of NYC's sidewalks like toadstools.

Rick's, it's called with a cheesy deco neon sign that's meant—she assumes—to recall the faded glamor of Casablanca.

Emma has been there before, drinking to the retro tunes on the jukebox and placing bets with the bartender who keeps a very hush-hush book. But that's not why she's crossing the road, she assures himself. It's for a drink. One of the cheap daytime drinks the place is famous for.

Emma walks into the bar's windowless gloom, Frank Sinatra ushering her to a stool at the counter. Except for an old guy nursing a beer, it's just Emma and the bartender.

"Haven't seen you in a while," Rick says.

"I've been away."

"The usual?" Emma nods. "And whatever you're drinking."

The man has a prodigious memory, and Emma watches in admiration as he pours a Maker's Mark over two blocks of ice.

He slides Emma's drink over to her and pops the cap on a beer, raising the bottle in salute.

"Cheers."

"Sláinte."

"That's Irish right?"

"Yes. I have a drop of the blood, on my mother's side."

The old geezer needs another drink and when Rick crosses to him Emma gets to thinking about her mother, and her hand reaches by reflex for the chain at her neck.

The chain's there, but the ring isn't. It's on Regina Mills' finger, of course.

What the hell did she think she was doing last night? Easy to blame her outrageous behavior on the painkillers and the booze, but Emma in her day has had more experience of chemicals than a pharmaceutical rep, and has never been driven to an act as wild as last night's stunt.

Did she really give a damn about Little Ms. Mills?_ No. _Maybe her heart was broken but she had tons of loot to sweeten the pain. And she was well rid of Leopold White._ So why then did she do what she did? _

Emma, not given to introspection or self-analysis, decides she did it because she was bored. Bored with being on the bones of her ass. Bored with getting kicked half way to Sunday by a Mexican thug. Bored with what she'd allowed herself to become: a lap dog at the beck and call of people like Jeff Hatter.

That morning, when Emma went to Jeff's house to collect her money and prevail upon the man to get her mother's ring back from Regina (even Emma had qualms about invading her bedroom and yanking the rocks off her finger) the TV hack treated her like the hired help.

"God, what a brutal hour to come calling," Jeff had said, even though he was freshly showered and coiffed, sipping a fruit juice. "I have a good mind to dock your pay."

"I'd like to hit the road."

"Understandable."

"But first I need you to get the ring back."

"Whose ring is it?" Jeff waved a hand. "Wait let me guess: your mother's?"

Emma nodded.

"You're in a deep hole, financially?"

"You know I am."

"Then why don't you sell the thing? It's worth a fortune."

When Emma didn't reply, Jeff burst out laughing.

"Well, well, who would've thought that Emma Swan has a sentimental streak?"

"I'm a regular Hallmark card. Come on, Jeff, help me out."

"Leave the ring with Regina for safekeeping. I can assure you it'll be safer with her than with you."

Emma couldn't dispute this, but she sniffed other motives. "You just want to play this marriage thing out, don't you?"

"Maybe."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons. Tell you what, why don't I throw another Grover Cleveland on this little pile," Jeff lifted the envelope containing Emma's wages off the table and wagged it, "in payment for you loaning the ring to Regina?"

"For how long?"

"A week or two."

And Emma had agreed. Rooting for crumbs at the feet of a man who polluted the world with trashy television.

Emma throws back her drink and holds her empty glass up to the bartender. Her eyes are drawn to the TV above the bar—horses being loaded into the starting stalls at the Saratoga race track. One horse fills the lens in close-up, its name flashing briefly on the screen: Mr. Mills.

Emma laughs.

What's this, some kind of a sign? She feels that wad of banknotes in her pocket and before she can think things through, she says to Rick, "Still keeping that book?"

"For you, sure."

Emma lays all her money on the counter. "Mr. Mills for a win."

The bartender raises an eyebrow. "That things a mutt, sweetheart."

"You'll take my action?"

"At fifty-to-one? Sure I'll take it."

And the money disappears into Rick's pocket and another drink materializes in front of Emma, who feels a sudden sweat on her brow.

_What are you doing?_

And with the question comes a vivid flashback of that gangbanger's shoe finding its way deep into her internal organs. Then the manic-voiced commentator shouts that they're off and Emma sits glued to the screen.

Mr. Mills hangs at the back of the pack, seemingly worthy of his rank outsider moniker. Then around midway through the race, something happens.

Mr. Mills starts to wake up and horse, by horse, moves forward. And with the finish in sight, he noses into the lead. Emma grips the bar counter, her heart beating like a wild thing. Then the favorite, like a sleek piebald Ferrari, cruises past, the jockey already waving his crop in celebration.

"Tough luck, kid," the bartender says, but he can't smother his smile.

"Those are the breaks." Emma throws back her drink and heads for the street.

Suddenly she is no longer bored. She's hungover and in pain and terribly, terribly afraid.

At the door the old man grabs her with a palsied hand. "Hold on, kiddo."

Emma stares at him, ready to slap his veiny old paw away.

"Take a look at the tube," the old guy says. As Emma turns back toward the TV the bartender zaps it dead with the remote.

"I'd appreciate you turning that back on, Rick," Emma says.

"Race is over."

"Rick," the ancient drinker says, "you do as the nice woman asks." The old geezer, whoever he is, has clout and the bartender sighs and clicks on the tube in time for Emma to see an action-replay of the finish of the race: the jockey on the favorite celebrating prematurely, standing up in his saddle and suddenly—unbelievably—falling from his mount, the horse crossing the finishing line without a rider.

The elderly drinker chortles. "Jockey can't win no race munching the turf of the home straight."

The old man's quaint locution gets Emma grinning, and the grin becomes a laugh when it is announced that the favorite has been disqualified.

Mr. Mills has won.

"Pay the girl, Rick," the old boy—Emma's new best friend—says.

Rick glowers at Emma but he pops the cash register and delves deep and long before he sets down a very nice wad before Emma.

"Dumb luck."

Emma takes the money, peels off a fifty and leaves it in front of the old guy. "A little something for your arthritis," she says.

The geezer spits out a loose-denture chortle. "Much obliged, kiddo, much obliged."

And, as Emma walks out into the New York sunshine, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, her luck is changing.

* * *

**A/N: One of the employees in our office. He is the oldest of all(He is like 75) calls me kiddo all the time. We sit everyday for 15mins in cafeteria and have cookies & milk. He makes me remember my grandpa.**

**There will be drama in the next chapter. I promise there will be more SWANQUEEN! Just have patience with me. This story is nothing like 'The Puppy and The Mayor'. So no 'Vagina Math' :-D**


	7. Punked

**Thank you hunnyfresh!**

* * *

**Chapter 7:**

Maleficent Tillman spends the morning in bed, unable to rouse herself, depression smothering her. The house is empty, Michael skulking around on some golf course, the ugly twins out doing whatever unappetizing teenagers do. Maleficent, like some primitive warrior, never enters the day without her war paint. Her ritual—come rain or come shine—is to rise and bathe and scrub her face and then spend hours in front of the vanity mirror applying lotions and unguents and painting on, layer by layer, her make-up. She does this no matter if she is planning on spending the day lounging at home, reading fashion magazines and watching TV—you never know who may ring the doorbell—or whether she is going to take the Maleficent Tillman show on the road, getting out there in town and doing what she does best: gossiping and stirring up dissent and disorder among the matrons of Storybrooke. But today, in the wake of the ball, she feels lethargic and depressed.

She lies in bed trying to shut down the image of Regina Mills accepting that outrageously romantic marriage proposal, while that gorgeous woman slipped onto her finger a ring that could square the national debt of an African nation.

_How could it have happened? How could Regina have risen phoenix-like from the ashes of her broken marriage? _

Finally Maleficent can no longer tolerate lying trapped in her bedroom and she slides from the bed in her Victoria's Secret negligee—what if the house burned down and some handsome firefighter had to carry her to safety?—and shrugs on a satin robe.

Michael Jr's laptop lies amidst the debris of his breakfast: he is as much a slob as his father. On a whim Maleficent drags the laptop over. She is no computer buff—she finds keyboards very unfriendly to her long nails—but she knows enough to Google Emma Swan.

What Wikipedia tells her blackens her mood further.

The woman is the real thing: a member of the East Coast elite, born into a family that came over on the Mayflower.

She's ready to shove the computer away in disgust when something catches her eye: an image of Emma Swan stepping out of a sports car with a handsome man on his arm. But the image hasn't been snapped by some hungry paparazzo—there is a bottle of aftershave slapped at the bottom of the pic.

An advertisement.

Emma Swan in an advertisement.

Long talons or not, Maleficent begins a frenzy of typing and mouse-clicking and what she discovers sends her mood soaring like a weather balloon.

The Swans lost their fortune in the crash of 2008. Emma has been reduced to modeling and unsuccessful attempts at acting (she couldn't even hack it as a soap star, for pity's sake) to keep the wolf from the door.

Leopold was right. The whole thing was a sham, the work, undoubtedly, of that nasty little fairy, Jeff Hatter.

Maleficent reaches for her phone and starts to light a fire under Regina Mills' pert little derrière.

* * *

When Regina walks into the Coffee shop she knows how one of those slaves must have felt when they were tossed into the lion's den.

The tables of the coffee shop are full of the women of the town: Maleficent Tillman and her crew. And all eyes are on Regina as she enters and looks around for Jeff, keeping, at his insistence, their ritual of afternoon coffee.

Of course, after last night's idiocy, she would be in the limelight, but she's sensing something, as if these harpies are sniffing the air in expectation.

She hurries across to where Jeff sits flicking through the newspaper, languid and unfazed as always. As he stands to exchange air kisses, Regina says, "Something's going on."

"You're the center of attention, Gina. Enjoy it."

"No, they're smelling blood. Mine."

"Nonsense." But as he looks around Regina sees him narrow his eyes.

"I'm right aren't I?"

"Relax, darling, no matter what happens I have your back."

"Oh good, then you can pull the knives out."

He blows her a kiss as the new waitress, an unusually pale girl in this world of bronzed surf bunnies, arrives to take their order. When the girl leaves, Maleficent Tillman strolls over. All conversation dies and every eye is on her.

Regina's stomach tightens. She's right. This is an ambush.

"Regina, darling," Maleficent says, her voice pitched to travel to the far reaches of the store.

"Hi, Maleficent."

"Or should I say Mrs. Mills-Swan?"

"That would be a little premature."

"Has a date been fixed?"

"Not yet."

"I suppose you're going to have to choose one that doesn't conflict with Ms. Swan's busy schedule?"

"Yes, I guess."

"What is occupying her at the moment?" Regina shoots a panicked look Jeff's way, and then says, "Well, she has many interests."

Like a second rate magician Maleficent produces a dog-eared magazine from behind her back. "Of course. Like a side girl for men fragrance?" She holds up the magazine, showing Emma in an aftershave ad from a few years ago.

There is laughter in the room. "Or, I'm told, one can still find her in tampon commercial on YouTube? 'The one. The only. Tampax?'"

The laughter increases.

"Last night was all a sham, wasn't it Regina? Emma Swan is just some failed actress who you paid to take you to the ball, paid to propose to you because you're so jealous of Leopold and his lovely new, and radiantly pregnant wife!" Like some lawyer in a show trial, Maleficent throws the magazine down on the table and turns, hands on hips, to the room full of women, as if they are the jury about to find Regina guilty.

Regina is pushing her chair back, ready to flee, when Jeff grabs her arm in a surprisingly strong grip and says, "Stay."

She stays and he stands, clinking a knife against a glass, as if he's about to make a speech at a wedding. "I hadn't anticipated going public so soon, but since Maleficent has been sniffing around, allow me to spill the beans."

Maleficent is staring at him. With a dismissive sweep of his hand he says, "You can take your seat now, Mal. Go on, shoo." Maleficent looks ready to fight, then she shrugs and sits.

"I suppose you all know the show Punked?" He looks around. "No, you're probably all a bit long in the tooth for that. How about Candid Camera? Ring any bells?" He has the attention of the room.

"Of course last night was a set up. A bit of theater. A bit of performance art. The brainwave of my dearest friend, the lovely, philanthropic, Regina Mills." Jeff places a hand on Regina's shoulder.

"You all know the wonderful work Regina does for her children's charity. And on her behalf, a big thank you for your generosity last night. But the proceeds from the Spring Ball, as welcome as they are, aren't nearly sufficient to cover those kids' needs. So, last night was the first taste of a new hidden camera show that my company, Startup Productions, is going to produce. And that the talented and very beautiful Emma Swan is going to host. A serious chunk of the profits from the show will go to the Regina Mills Children's Fund." He smiles at the women who are staring at him, rapt.

Maleficent jumps up and says, "Oh come on girls, don't tell me you're buying this trash? You didn't see any cameras last night, did you?"

Jeff smiles. "Mal, darling, a hidden camera show is so named because the cameras are hidden."

Maleficent, the wind sucked from her sails, sends a panicked look around the room and then slumps down in her seat.

Jeff continues. "My assistants will be in touch with each and every one of you who were caught on camera to sign release forms. Ladies, you're all going to be on TV!"

There is a buzz of excitement in the room and Jeff takes Regina's arm. "Let's beat it."

Once they're out on the sidewalk she turns to him. "More lies, Jeff?"

"Well, teeny little white ones."

"What are you going to tell them when none of them appears on TV?"

"Oh, technical hitches. That kind of thing."

"Lying is one thing, Jeff, but dragging those kids into this, making false promises about donations going their way . . ."

"Oh, don't worry, darling, they'll get their money."

"How? There's no show."

"Not yet." She's staring at him. "I'm going to do it, Regina, the silly hidden camera thing. The network that screens Startup has been talking to me about doing a reality show for them. It all came together back there. Nothing like thinking on one's feet, huh?" "You're going to do a show?"

"Yes. I'll get my concept people busy on it right away."

"And Emma Swan is going to host it?"

"Why not? She's great looking and I must say I saw something in her last night that just might work."

"Jeff, stop, you're swallowing your own lies." They've reached the beach and he comes to a halt, staring out at the ocean.

"Okay, Regina, maybe you're right. Maybe I won't be able to get this show to fly. Maybe the network will think a hidden camera show is a dumb hackneyed idea."

"Which it is."

"Hell yeah, too many candid camera type shows, right?"

"Way too many."

"Like there are way too many soaps?" She looks at him. "You know how I got to do Startup?"

"No."

"I got a call asking if I had any ideas, that a network was shopping for a new show. There was a pitch session in an hour. I said hell, yes, I'll be there. Know what I had?"

"I'm not your straight man, Jeff. Hit me with the punch line." "Okay, I had zip. Bupkis, as they used to say back in the Bronx. I was sitting in a coffee shop in New York Downtown with an apocalyptic hangover and nostrils bleeding from a night of blow. I looked around, saw all these idiots on their laptops and it came to me: a soap about dot-commers. About Internet start-ups. About the loves and lives of those social misfit geeks with the truckloads of money pouring in. I went into the pitch session and I killed." "That was a great idea at the time. If you pitched it now it'd go down like a lead balloon."

"You're right. It would. But I'd have another idea, one that is more au courant."

"Jeff, you're brilliant, but you're also sad and lonely and unloved."

He looks at her, stung. "Regina . . ."

"You live through your characters. You play God, control them, choose their victories and defeats while you stay isolated behind your superior manner and your witticisms."

"Okay, Gina, that's enough."

"I love you, Jeff, you're my best friend, but I'm not one of your characters, I'm flesh-and-blood. I have to deal with everything the world throws my way and I think it's time I stop letting you write my lines." Regina walks off, eyes tearing up, about as upset as she's been since the day Leopold dumped her.

* * *

Jeff Hatter sits on his porch in the dark, his demons dancing around him in the shadows. Regina's words had stung, and he feels as empty, shallow and unloved as she said he was.

How easy it would be to hit speed-dial on his phone and summon a dealer from down in Portland. In forty minutes a car would draw up outside his house and a man in a bad suit, gripping an attaché case filled with chemicals, would oil up his pathway and the last few years of living clean would be gone.

Poof.

Jeff takes his phone from his pocket, but when he dials a number it's not his dealer he's calling.

"Emma," he says when a voice answers, "how are you?"

"I'm good, Jeff. I returned the car as promised."

"Of course you did, that's not why I'm calling."

"Oh?"

"There's a situation."

"A situation?"

"Yes. That stunt of yours has had repercussions, I'm afraid."

"Oh? You're not telling me I have to go through with the wedding are you?" Emma says, laughing. "I mean, come on, it was all in the way of fun."

"Yes, and fun it was. No, it's about Regina."

"What about her?"

"She's low, Emma."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but what can I do?"

"Call her up. Ask her out."

"She loathes me."

"No, she doesn't."

"Jeff, she's a nice woman. She doesn't need a girl like me in her life."

"Oh, au contraire, I think you're exactly what she needs. She's lived amongst philistines for far too long. Show her that there's more to life than the low horizon of this bloody town."

"I thought you loved it up there?"

"I do, but only because I'm jaded, Emma. I've seen it all. Regina has seen nothing, and I want you to give her a glimpse of the big, wide world out there."

"How?"

"Talk to her. Tell her things. Tell her about India, about Africa. Intrigue her, for God's sake."

"I don't think so, Jeff."

"I'll make it worth your while."

"How?"

"I'm putting together a pilot, for a reality show."

"Hell, that's really scraping the barrel."

"I could say something about glass houses and stones, girl, but I won't."

"Okay, I'm sorry."

"I'd like you to audition for presenter."

"Me? When I tried-out for Startup you told me that my stiff performance lived up to my last name."

"Maybe I got a little carried away by my own cleverness." "Maybe."

"Emma, I'm sincere. I'll have my people line up an audition. I saw something in you at the ball last night that caught my interest. But I need you to help me with Regina."

"Okay, I'll ask her out, even though she'll probably turn me down."

"I suspect she won't. But one thing, Emma, she's never to know that we spoke, understood?"

"Sure." Jeff ends the call and feels not the slightest twinge of guilt. He can master his addiction to chemicals, but nobody—not even his dearest friend and neighbor Regina Mills—is going to stop him from playing God.

* * *

Wearing her darkest dark glasses, Regina reverses the Mercedes (a clunky relic of the Leopold-era as she now finds herself calling the five years of her marriage) out of the garage and turns it toward town.

This is the first time she's left the house since her coffee date with Jeff at the Coffee shop three days ago. She's been lying low. Ben and Jerry have been her BFFs and she's watched enough ten-tissue weepies—Nicholas Sparks should be tried for crimes against the female heart!—to turn her brain to mush along with her midriff.

She doesn't look at Jeff's house as she passes, and if a lace curtain twitches at Maleficent Tillman's lair she doesn't allow herself to see it. Regina drives down the main road, fights off the temptation to dash into the Coffee shop for a caramel iced mocha and a cream Danish to go, and heads for the hills.

The place depresses her deeply and if she didn't have a mission to accomplish here, she would turn the Mercedes around and head home to continue her career as a miserable shut-in. But she drives on and parks outside a freshly painted building with a small yard filled with flowers, an oasis in the midst of the grim surroundings.

Regina checks her face in the mirror and judges her appearance adequate to the task at hand, and as she steps down from the vehicle, she even manages to find something resembling a smile. The smile becomes real, and the sadness and humiliation of the last days is forgotten, when kids spill from the entrance of the building and mob Regina, resisting the attempts of their harried minders to contain them.

If they think of pretty, nicely-put together Regina Mills as their fairy princess, what harm can it do? Regina visits once a month, always with gifts and provisions and she knows most of the children by name.

Had even chosen—one of the most difficult choices she'd ever had to make—a beautiful five-year-old, Henry, as the child she and Leopold would adopt.

Before. Before. Before . . .

Regina on her knees talking to Henry, feels the prick of tears.

_God, Regina, I thought Mr. Sparks had you all wrung out. _

She's saved when one of the saintly women who run the center appears in the playground with a giant check: the proceeds from the Spring Ball.

The check, of course, is purely symbolic, prepared for a photo-op with Storybrooke's sole newspaper The Mirror. The money raised a few nights ago has already made its electronic way into the Children's Center's bank account. Regina stands and the kids crowd around her as she holds one side of the check, the editor-cum-journalist-cum-photographer of The Mirror Sydney hurrying up, looking as harried as ever, his combed-over hair flapping in the slight breeze in the open playground.

He looks around and says, "Your husband on his way?"

One of the women makes frantic signals, tapping her own ring finger—indicating Regina's empty one (Emma Swan's ring is back home in her safe) but Sydney doesn't get it, staring in confusion.

"Mr. White and I are no longer married," Regina says, with as much composure as she can muster. "So I'm afraid you're going to have to make do with just me today."

"Of course, I see. I'm sorry, I had no idea," Sydney mumbles, fussing with his camera.

The photograph is taken and Regina spends a little more time with the kids, her broken heart broken all over again (is that even possible, Regina?) when she has to say goodbye, watching Henry—always the last to go inside—waving at her through the fence.

As she drives home, the afternoon sun passing the rusted oil mines, she feels a sadness so profound that when her phone (left untouched in her purse these last days) rings she draws it out, expecting it to be Jeff, begging to be recalled from purgatory.

But it's not Jeff.

CALLER UNKNOWN is displayed on the face of her iPhone, and she almost ignores it, thinking it'll be a phone marketer trying to unload something useless on her.

But she answers and hears a voice saying, "Hi, Regina, this is Emma. Emma Swan."

* * *

**What do you think of this chapter? **

**I know I had to end the Engagement Phase because we are in the world of Internet, you know how the search engines work. You can find everything about a person.**


	8. Author Note

Hello Readers!

I am so sorry for going AWOL. I had to move to London for a project. Now I am back home and ready to rock n roll..

I will update new chapters tomorrow or Monday(have to get Beta Checked ;])

But I promise I will try to finish both of my stories before I take a new project.

Lets just hope that these stories help with my heart break.. :'(


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